A Quiet Normal Life
by dragonmactir
Summary: On the advice of his therapist, Lassiter takes up an absorbing new hobby. Emerging Lassiet. Now a crossover. Doctor Strange, since the idiots don't have him listed ANYWHERE in the comics category that I can find.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of _Psych_ and its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

 **Rating:** T+

 **Spoilers:** Hard to say. Could be through entire series, but likely won't be many.

 **A/N:** I wanted to do a Halloween story, like the ones the great and wonderful Loafer has done the past couple of years (read 'em: they're awesomeness defined). Her latest ongoing, "Enough Now," seems to have picked up a slight flavor of that at least as well, though whether it will actually be supernatural or just a red herring remains to be seen. I tried and tried, but couldn't come up with anything better than this, and it's not really Halloween-y, at least not yet. It is also, I fear, another ongoing. I tried to make it a one-shot, which explains the length of this chapter. Sorry. I am taking my medication, I swear, but…I may be on a manic spike. Hard to say: I get hyperactive and irritable and have a hard time sleeping, and those things are all pretty normal for me anyway, so it's hard to say. I have seven windows open on my laptop, all of them chapters of various fics I'm working on currently, and there's another three or four in the works without open windows. I will try to concentrate my fractured focus but even at the best of times I'm typically writing three or four stories at once. Oh, and this will probably be Lassiet down the road. Come on, you had that figured, right? In any event this story is…well…let's just say…I love the odd. I hope you like this one: I'm rather proud of it, think it turned out better than I was expecting it to. But it is odd, severely. It's meant to be.

* * *

 **Chapter One: A Non-Law Enforcement Hobby**

Interior domestic: the man with salt-and-pepper hair sat at his own small kitchen table, reading the newspaper and sipping a cup of black coffee. He was tall and slim and had piercingly beautiful eyes the color of a perfect clear mid-afternoon sky. His ears were a trifle overlarge and his silver-shot hair was naturally wavy, so that the longer he let it grow the bushier it looked. His skin was fair and the collar of the dark blue t-shirt he wore beneath his plaid cotton button-down was not high enough to thoroughly conceal the dark hair that grew thick on his chest. On a silver chain around his neck hung a pair of intricately detailed silver dragons to either side of an polished Oriental jade cut crystal.

He read slowly, his eyes lingering and not infrequently hesitating over each word. The coffee cooled half-forgotten in his hand, and when his cell phone rang, he could not at first recognize the theme song to the TV show "COPS" as his ringtone.

" _Bad boys bad boys, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?"_ the tinny cell phone speakers rang, and finally he recognized it as an incoming call. He dug the phone out of his jeans pocket and looked at the Caller ID display: O'Hara. He answered.

"Lassiter."

"Carlton, hi," O'Hara's cheery voice resounded in his ear. "Listen, were you planning on doing anything tonight?"

Studying, but he wasn't going to tell _her_ that.

"Nothing specific. Why?"

"A bunch of us are going out bowling tonight, at Westwood Lanes. Some beer, a little bonding with your coworkers…wings, cheesesticks, maybe a little pizza. What do you say?"

"I don't know," he said reluctantly. Something small flew past his head, beating the air with leathery wings and squeaking shrilly. He ignored it. "You know I'm not much of a socializer. Or particularly well-liked."

"Come on, Carlton. Just give it a try. You're better-liked than you _think_ you are, and it'll be fun!"

"Oh…okay," he said. "For an hour or so, maybe."

"Great! I'll see you then, partner. Eight o'clock."

Supersonic screeches circled his head as the little creature did laps around the kitchen, attempting to draw his attention. He signed off from the call with unruffled aplomb and returned to his paper. He took a sip of coffee, now long past tepid, and resumed his labored reading. The creature dive-bombed into the two or three inches of cold coffee remaining in his cup. With a long-suffering sigh, Lassiter folded his newspaper and reached into the coffee cup to dig the animal out. The little dragon, no larger than a hummingbird, screeched at him and attacked his thumb, wrestling it with teeth and talons too tiny even to break the skin.

"Pepper, settle down now," he said severely. The dragon broke off fighting and began to lick the coffee off his fingers with a scratchy pink tongue about the size of the blunt end of a toothpick. "Now, you know what caffeine does to you, so none of that."

He plucked the dragon up in his other hand and placed it gently upon the table top, where it proceeded to attack and shred the corner of his newspaper. Resigned, Lassiter rose from his chair and left the kitchen to look up a spell that might help him spend at least part of the evening with his partner and coworkers while not missing out on the valuable study time - he needed every minute of it he could get. With a high-pitched trill, the dragon flew off the kitchen table and latched onto his hair with all four legs and its wing claws, scrambled up, and made a nest for itself on top of his head. Its small but remarkably strong tail thwacked into his skull several times.

The dragons and witchcraft were rather recent additions to Detective Carlton Lassiter's otherwise _relatively_ ordinary life. He certainly hadn't gone out hunting for black magic. His only exposure to the world of the arcane were his mother's stories of witch trials and Inquisitions when he was a boy, Marvel Comics' _Doctor Strange_ , and the _Harry Potter_ series by J.K. Rowling, which he would never admit to _anyone_ on the force he had read and quite enjoyed.

What he _had_ gone out looking for, at a therapist's insistence, was a _non_ -law enforcement related hobby. He tried cooking and baking, and rather enjoyed it, but with no one to do it for found it slightly depressing. Archery was fun, but the therapist groaned and said he needed to focus on things _other_ than weapons. He had his Civil War reenactments, but only once a year. Horseback riding would make a nice hobby if he had his own horse and a decent place to ride it, but he had neither, not being made out of money.

He finally took up weekly tap lessons with Guster, not that they were at all at the same level, and that was okay. It did seem to clear his mind. But his therapist wanted him to go _on_ from there, and find other things to occupy himself. He didn't even know where to start looking.

While talking to a bookstore owner about the details of a robbery, he glanced around at the stacks of antique books and found himself fascinated. He was dyslexic - even the simplest act of reading was a struggle - but he was always interested in the knowledge tucked away between the covers of a good book, and losing himself in a good story seemed like a way to occupy himself, a way that wasn't in any conceivable way law-enforcement related. His therapist couldn't complain about it if he took to filling up his bookshelves, right?

And so he came back to the bookstore after the robbery case was settled, and browsed through the inventory of dusty tomes, purchasing titles almost at random; many he recognized and some few he did not. _20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The Sea Wolf. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Kim. The Neverending Story. The Little Prince._

The book of sorcerous arcana was just one more unrecognized title he picked up thinking it would keep him occupied for some days. He certainly didn't think it was real. When he started to read and, accidentally, cast his first spell, he slammed the book closed and jumped out of his chair and over the back of it like he'd been pulled on a line. He didn't believe what he'd done, but he _had_ seen it, and he typically believed the things he saw. Cautiously, he returned to the book. Over time, with a few more deliberate castings to check its veracity, he came to accept that it was real.

He'd made slow but steady progress down the path of sorcery in the years that followed, but within the last he seemed to have acquired a secret benefactor or, perhaps, tutor - unmarked, unsolicited packages kept arriving on his doorstep, with terse instructions from a sender unidentified. The necklace he wore had been in the first package, its purpose unexplained except for the strong admonition, in all-capitals, to WEAR IT ALWAYS, and despite misgivings he'd done as the instructions commanded, keeping it tucked well beneath his collar and tie so no one knew he wore it. Nothing seemed to have come of it yet, except further "gifts" from his unidentified source. Around mid-August he'd awakened one morning to find his patio barbecue grill alight and smoking gaily - he'd been morally certain, as he approached it with all the confidence of a man advancing upon a rabid porcupine, that he would open the lid to discover that someone had taken it upon themselves to grill a cat or other small animal. Instead he'd discovered a tiny rainbow-hued egg sitting in the middle of the glowing briquettes, the grill plate itself off and leaning against the barbecue's legs. A brown-paper parcel on the tile floor nearby proved to contain several hefty volumes on dragons, including an Audubon Society-style field guide that he was able to consult in order to discover that the egg in his grill belonged to a species called a Teacup Opaleye, a breed of dragon he was relieved to discover never grew to more than four to six inches in total body length. In accordance with the handwritten instructions he discovered folded inside the front cover of the largest book he kept the egg cooking steadily for three weeks, which cost him a small fortune in Kingsford charcoal, until finally the egg hatched and "Pepper" tumbled out. From the books he'd learned that the blind and flightless newborn dragon was called a hatchling first, a chick once its eyes opened after the first day, a fledgling once the baby membrane fell away from its wings after the second week to allow it to make its first clumsy attempts at flight, and a dragonlet from thence to maturity once it was strong enough to make extended flights after another week or so. Pepper was now in this final, adolescent stage of growth, becoming as cocky and obnoxious as any human teenager, and Lassiter had yet to learn whether he was in the keeping of a male ("drake") or a female ("dam"). There was no easy way to determine the gender of so small a dragon, according to the books, until maturity, when the skin of the male would turn from dull black to shimmering psychedelic rainbow. If Pepper turned out to be a _she_ , then she would remain pepper-black. Lassiter had an inkling that his dragon was female, based solely on the fact that the dragon seemed to effortlessly boss him around.

Boy or girl, the little dragon demanded as much attention as he could give it, and often as now made a rat's nest of his hair while he pored through his books in his slow, labored way, looking for one thing or another. But the dragon was not simply a high maintenance exotic pet; the creature exhibited uncanny intelligence and clearly had at least some rudimentary understanding, instinctual or in some way acquired, of magical research. If he wasted too much valuable dragon-keeping time hunting down some required spell or other, the dragon would take it upon itself to impatiently assist his researches, finding him the correct volume or sometimes even the sought-for page. He was not certain whether this was a standard characteristic of the species (the books said nothing conclusive on the matter, at least not that he'd found) or if Pepper was meant to be his Familiar, a subject his studies had touched upon lightly but of which he had not yet found an in-depth explanation of which he was able to make sense.

He shuffled through the ever-growing stack of leather-bound texts on subjects of the arcane, looking for that first, trusty spell book amid thirty-pound tomes with titles like _A Dissection of the Elder or Germanic Futhark_ and _A Treatise Upon Translocation Through Telekinesis, Popularly Termed Teleportation._ His eyes caught and held for a moment on a title freshly arrived from the ether by the hand of his unnamed mentor - _Cross-Species Communication Made Easy -_ \- and wondered how long it would take his watchful surveillor to become frustrated enough with the slow pace of his progress before he began to receive the _Black Magic for Dummies_ series. With a furious hiss, Pepper slithered down off his head and dove into the pile of books, emerging moments later tugging with disproportionate strength at the binding of the volume he sought. Lassiter made an abortive attempt to flip to the index, but the dragonlet nipped impatiently at his fingers and nudged the covers open with its snout, then flipped through the vellum pages until the book lay open at a spell that enabled him to create an identical twin of himself with which he would share consciousness but would be otherwise autonomous. The conjuration's duration of eight hours was more than enough time for the longest night-out he could ever imagine. The preparations were fairly complex but he had time enough before eight o'clock to manage it. Hopefully.

"Thanks, Pepper," he said.

He looked at the spell more carefully. The things he could do with this, if he could get good at it. Getting the jump on perps would become laughable. Of course, he was keeping this particular "hobby" a secret, but still, if he could keep people from finding _out_ about it…

He shook his head vigorously. Best not to think about it. He couldn't take the risk of anyone finding out. His mysterious benefactor hadn't had to caution him to secrecy: he needed no one to think he was crazier than they already thought him. And on the off chance something he did caused someone to _believe_ it of him? That might be worse yet.

He remembered all too _well_ his mother's stories of witch trials and Inquisitions.

In the length of time Lassiter had been studying black magic, he had overcome _some_ of the sense of surrealism that still suffused every layer of this undoubtedly absorbing "hobby." Just some. He still hadn't quite accepted that there truly was an actual world of magical arts out there beyond his condo walls, with other people studying the same things, practicing at, perhaps, a higher level. Sweet Lady Justice, even using it to do _bad_ things, like hurt people and steal things. He could see how this could be used that way, easily. All the more reason to get as good at it as possible, so he could track _down_ those people and _stop_ them.

And good sweet God in heaven…there were _dragons_ out there somewhere? _Big_ ones? According to the field guide that had introduced him to Pepper.

It left him wondering what _else_ was out there. Yes, indeed it did.

With a mental shudder, he pushed such thoughts out of his mind and set to work learning this new spell, stumbling over the difficult pronunciations and digging through those packages from his mysterious tutor that contained herbs and other ingredients for the odds and ends the recipe required. He stopped to wonder just how and _why_ he, of all people, had ever started down this most unlikely road, and then Pepper bit him on the ear and screeched at him, which he took to mean he was wasting too much time.

"Ease up, Pepper. Latin class was a long time ago, and I have enough trouble just with English," he said.

 _Rrreeep!_ the dragonlet screeched at him, letting him know that excuses wouldn't cut it. With a sigh and a roll of the eyes, Lassiter got down to business.

At roughly six-forty-five, Lassiter at last had a completed potion. He scooped some into a mug and, with only a few misgivings, drank it down. A strange sensation, quite indescribable, and suddenly the world _doubled_. He was looking through two sets of eyes.

He turned to look at himself. Both of him did. He raised his right hand. It was not a mirror image: both of him…raised his right hand. He needed to learn to make himself autonomous from himself, a complicated proposition. With some effort, he made one of himself put his right hand down and raise his left hand instead. He slapped five with himself. Pepper landed on the shoulder of the self standing further into the room. That was the self he'd leave home, the one he was _fairly_ sure was the created one, who'd disappear after eight hours. Some effort, and that one turned away and went and sat down at the desk to start studying, pulling _A Dissection of the Elder or Germanic Futhark,_ by far the most appalling tome to his dyslexic soul and needing the most study, being a book about runic writing, towards him. He turned away from himself and headed out the door to his bedroom to prepare himself for a night out. Honestly, he was dressed just fine for a night out with…well, he supposed he could call them "friends," although only O'Hara really fit that description even slightly, but he wouldn't look right to them and, most importantly of all, the necklace he wore was visible. He didn't want to have to make up some explanation why he was wearing a necklace of dragons and something Sergeant Allen would undoubtedly call a "power crystal" - something that _probably_ was.

Before long he was decked out in a well-pressed dress shirt - the sky blue one that O'Hara liked the best - and charcoal slacks and was debating a tie. It would certainly hide the necklace, but even he could see it might be too much for a night out, though there had been a time when the only thing he changed between his work clothes and "civvies" were his shoes. In the guest room, Pepper gave out a frustrated screech and fluttered over to a book lying on the bed and flipped to a page inside. He looked and saw a spell to make objects invisible. It was a relatively simple process.

Reading in the guest room and casting in the bedroom was a unique experience, but when it was complete the necklace was indeed invisible. He left the top two buttons of his shirt undone - about as casual as his coworkers would ever expect him to be. He grabbed his keys out of the Depression glass candy dish on the end table by the front door and headed out.

Westwood Lanes was on the other side of town from his condo, but still he got there early. Nevertheless, he saw O'Hara's lime green Bug in the lot, and McNab's periwinkle AMC Gremlin - Lord only knows how _that_ car was still running. The two of them were leaning against the front of the building, chatting and waiting. O'Hara saw him and waved like she hadn't seen him in years.

"Omigod, Carlton, come here!" she said.

"Hey, boss!" McNab said, just as cheerily if a little less excitedly.

Hands in his pants pockets, Lassiter shuffled over to stand nearby, looking down at his feet. Back at home, he looked up from his book for a moment to contemplate exactly why these two seemed so damnably glad to see him, at least until Pepper landed on his head and began pouncing up and down, demanding he get back to work.

"Hey, y'all," he said at the bowling alley, in his sudden unexpected sense of shyness lapsing into a "Hankism" he rarely affected. O'Hara giggled and put on a Southern accent.

"Why Detective, I do declare, it is good to see you this evenin'."

"Yeah yeah, make fun," he muttered, back home, while trying to make sense of the runic symbol for the "th" sound. At the bowling alley, he merely smiled a little and nodded politely.

Soon enough, Sergeant Allen pulled up in her fire-engine red Toyota Prius - if any car didn't deserve to be sports car red, it was that one: Lassiter could pick it up and throw it, like a roller skate - and joined them, and shortly thereafter Miller, Dobson, and Franks drove up in their respective vehicles, all respectable except for Miller's ridiculous olive drab Nissan Cube - like the auto industry _needed_ knockoffs of the horrible Kia Fusion hamstermobile, the rolling ammo box. Lassiter would sooner buy McNab's Gremlin than slide behind the wheel of _that_ monstrosity of modern innovation - and that seemed to be the lot. Some laughter, the shaking of hands and clapping of shoulders, none of which Lassiter joined in, and they all went inside to pay and get their rental shoes.

He didn't _particularly_ care to slip his feet into used shoes, no matter how freshly Lysol'd. He put up with it for the sake of the evening and the knowledge that he could probably dig up a curative spell if he _did_ contract Athlete's Foot or some kind of wart. He grabbed a fourteen-pound ball from the rack against the wall and followed O'Hara over to the lane the attendant had opened up for them. O'Hara started plugging their names into the scoreboard: Juliet, Buzz, Trish (for Patricia, otherwise known as Sgt. Allen), Rick (for Miller), Greg (Dobson), and Mike (Franks). In the last position she put…Carly.

"Carly? Really?" he said, both at home and right to her at the lanes, hands on his hips and eyebrows in the "I'm very put-out" position.

"Oh, lighten up, Carly," she said, giggling, as Buzz and Dobson came up from the bar with a pitcher of beer and a tray of seven mugs. "Come on: the best part of bowling with the guys is getting buzzed."

He accepted his mug of beer. "I'm…surprised Spencer and Guster aren't here," he said, casually. It took him a second to realize he said it at home, so he said it again, concentrating on saying it with his other mouth. "I'm surprised Spencer and Guster aren't here."

"We didn't ask them," Juliet said, almost primly. "Tonight is for cops. That said, I expect they'll be by sooner or later."

"I'll try to curb my enthusiasm," Lassiter said dryly. Secretly, he was proud of his partner. Ever since she and Spencer had broken up some months ago she'd been friendly with the fake psychic but far less likely to call on him for assistance or even to call on him at all than previously. She had, in his considered opinion, taken back her self-respect and dignity as well as her professional pride and he was _extremely_ glad to see it.

They bowled, and he studied. McNab was on a hot streak, throwing strike after strike. Lassiter felt glad for the big lug - he needed a win every once in awhile. Back at home, he was growing increasingly frustrated with the Germanic Futhark. Finally he slammed the book closed.

" _I give the fuck up!"_ he shouted. Everyone turned to look at him, and he realized he had said it at the bowling alley. Stammering, he quickly amended, "I'll never beat McNab tonight."

"Join the club," Juliet said, and bit the end off a mozzarella cheese stick lackadaisically.

Embarrassed, he slumped down in the back of the booth to await his turn to bowl, and at home he sat over the closed book with his face in his hand until something nudged against his elbow on the desk. He looked down and saw a brown paper package that hadn't been there a moment ago. With a shrug, he opened it up. A pair of wire-rimmed spectacles fell out into his hand, along with a note on heavy parchment, written in the elegant, flowing hand he'd come to recognize.

 _I admire your perseverance in the face of your affliction: you carried on with intense determination far past the point another in your condition would have given up. But now, the time has come to quit torturing you. Try these: you'll find going forward far easier._

He put the glasses on and, curious, opened the book again. At first he noticed no difference - runes still looked like gibberish to him - but then Pepper pulled another book toward him, one written entirely in English but of a complicated bent. He read a few pages. He blinked. He read a few pages more.

"Holy horse cakes," he muttered under his breath. Glasses that correct dyslexia? Wonders never _do_ cease. He could use these at work - tell people they were reading glasses he'd picked up off the shelf at Wal-Mart. He was of the age where most men got presbyopia. That wasn't his problem _yet,_ thank God and Sweet Lady Justice. How much quicker would he be able to get through paperwork and case files? Nobody would think anything of it because nobody _knew_ he was dyslexic.

He returned to the book on runic writing, confident now that he could figure it out in the reasonable certainty that each symbol would appear to him as it was _meant_ to appear rather than appearing backwards or upside down or inside out or whatever. At the bowling alley he began to notice that the pleasant buzz he felt from the beer was deepening, and he couldn't let it go any further. Neither did he want to stop drinking, and no else seemed inclined to do so. So he reached into his pocket and surreptitiously pulled out his secret weapon: an amethyst crystal. If Allen saw it, she would coo over its "spiritual powers." He didn't care about them, if they existed. What he needed was what the Ancient Greeks had been aware of, what had caused them to name the stone "amethyst." With just the slightest invocation of generalized magical power, the stone neutralized the intoxicating effects of alcohol - amethyst: "not intoxicating." He dropped it into the bottom of his mug. Now he could drink as much as he wanted, and get all the _pleasant_ side effects of alcohol with none of the impairment.

It was a funny thing, really. How one self was in danger of getting drunk while the other self wasn't even remotely tipsy.

The pizza came, and he helped himself to a slice of Supreme while Buzz went up to bowl his set. He looked up from his book as his eyes chanced upon a strange sight: Juliet tiptoeing up behind McNab, intent on _what_ he did not know.

Buzz approached the foul line, bringing the ball back in a smooth motion preparatory to bringing it forward again and releasing it down the slippery lane. Before he could, however, Juliet came up behind him silently and, in a remarkably deep, barking, commanding voice, shouted, _"McNab!"_

Startled, the big man threw the ball right into the gutter. O'Hara collapsed into a chair by the ball return, laughing helplessly. McNab spun around and his eyes sought out Lassiter where he sat at the back of the booth. Lassiter raised both hands.

"I swear to God, McNab, it wasn't me," he said.

Buzz looked at Juliet, still laughing so hard she was practically in hiccups, gave out with a singular laugh of sheer disbelief and, quite gently, pulled her out of the chair and onto the floor.

"I'm sorry," Juliet said, still laughing her ass off. "I'm so sorry, Buzz. I couldn't help myself. It was so perfect. I didn't mean to ruin your great score, I just couldn't stop myself. The devil made me do it."

Everybody was laughing now, including McNab. Sergeant Allen patted McNab on the arm as she got up to bowl. McNab came back to the booth to sit down.

"I think you're still winning, if it makes you feel any better," Lassiter told him.

"Oh, that's okay, boss," McNab said in his usual genial fashion. "I shouldn't really care one way or another. The point is just to have fun, right?"

Lassiter thought about it and was surprised to acknowledge that he _was_ having fun. He hadn't expected that at all. Even the Germanic Futhark was kind of amusing now that he could read it properly.

They bowled a few more frames, and then, as was almost destined, a loud voice broke over their table.

"Lassy! Jules! Buzzter! Guys! Hey, guys! Fancy meeting you here tonight! Of course, I knew we _would,_ because I'm psychic."

"Aw, Shawn! Gus! Hey," Juliet said, brightly but somehow falsely. "What a pleasant surprise. But how unfortunate: 'Lassy' and I were just leaving!" She grabbed Lassiter by the shirt sleeve and tugged at him, whispering, "Get me out of here, now."

Fun or not, he was more than willing. They made their apologies to the group and headed for the front doors, returning their balls and changing their shoes. They went outside and Lassiter headed for his Fusion, but was surprised when Juliet did, too.

"You're coming with _me?"_ he asked.

"I, good sir, am legally impaired," she said, with some asperity. "I stopped being roadworthy sometime before I pulled that dumbass prank on McNab. You, for some reason, seem just fine, despite the fact that you drank at _least_ as much as anyone else tonight."

He supposed that _did_ look interesting. "I ate quite a bit," he said, lamely.

" _I_ did too," she said.

"Well…you know, I'm Irish, and…beer's a baby drink."

"Irish people get drunk off beer all the time," O'Hara grumbled, flopping down into the passenger seat with her arms folded belligerently across her chest.

Lassiter climbed in and started the ignition. "Take me to your place," Juliet said.

" _What?"_ he said, one head turning towards her sharply while the other shot up from his book just as sharply.

"Take me to _your_ place," she repeated. "I'm not quite ready for this night to be over, and in any case it's either ask to stay over at your place or ask you to stay over at mine, so you can kindly drive me over here in the morning so I can get my car. I've never _been_ to your place when it wasn't a crime scene or a work-in-progress, so I'd really like to go with the _former_ possibility, thank you."

Through supreme effort, he only allowed his panic to show at home.

"You…want to stay over?" he said, as casually as he could manage. "I don't really know that that would work."

"Why not? You have a guest room, don't you?"

"Yeah, but…the bed is all…covered with old books and…boxes of stuff I need to go through and…throw away or put in storage. Haven't gotten around to it, yet. I don't generally expect to have guests, particularly of the overnight variety."

"Oh. You can't just…shove all that stuff off onto the floor for one night?" she said. "I'd help you pick it all up again in the morning."

Shit. Such a reasonable solution. But he didn't want to have to come up with explanations for the Bunsen burner or the titles of most of those books, the wolfsbane and St. John's-wort and other cut and/or planted herbs here and there around the room. Most especially, he didn't want to have to explain the two and a half-inch dragonlet or the second self currently hyperventilating in that room, which still had several hours of existence remaining.

The lie came to him remarkably smoothly.

"Those old books and those boxes are all dusty and dirty, and the sheets are just covered in it," he said. "I don't have clean sheets for you to use."

"Oh," she said, and her pretty face screwed up in a moue of disappointment. "Well, you have a couch, right? I could sack out on that."

"Just a loveseat, I'm afraid."

"Well, I'm short, and I always sleep curled up."

She wasn't going to give up. Well, there was one thing he could do. He got up from his desk and went over and locked the guest room door, trapping himself and Pepper inside so no one could get in at them. "Okay, but you can take my bed," he said, in the car. "I'll sleep in the armchair."

"Carlton, you can't do that," she admonished.

"It's okay. I sleep in the armchair a lot. It's pretty comfortable, and sometimes it's just easier for me to sleep sitting up."

"Well…all right, if you're sure," she said, reluctantly.

"I'm sure. It's just fine, O'Hara," he said, thankful that he had restricted all arcane books and accoutrements to the guest room, which served as his office. He didn't have so much as a brass dragon paperweight out on display anywhere else. Except around his neck, but that was invisible right now, and he wouldn't be breaking _that_ spell any time soon.

He drove back to Prospect Gardens and parked in the underground parking facility nearby. He climbed out of the car and Juliet followed him out of the garage and into the imposing condo complex, a little wobbly and more than a little… _jolly?_ Up the elevator to the fifth floor, and to the corner unit 536, where he unlocked the front door and let her in, with only some slight trepidation.

"Let's go out onto your balcony," Juliet said. "It's such a nice night. I can't believe how nice and warm it is."

"Good idea," he said, and in truth he was quite relieved at the suggestion. He led the way.

Juliet stood in the middle of the space and looked around by the light cast by the lights above the sliding glass door. "It's really nice out here," she said, appreciatively. "You've got nice furniture, and I love how you've planted out the window boxes. Just beautiful. You can almost forget there's someone else's balcony right next to this separated by just a wrought iron railing."

She approached the railing and Lassiter raised a hand to stop her, but before he could get the words out, trouble appeared. A German Shepherd popped up on the other side of the railing and started barking at Juliet most fiercely.

" _Jesus!"_ she said in alarm, recoiling.

"Say 'Hi, Shannon!'" Lassiter said.

"Hi, Shannon!" Juliet said, in a sweet, cheery voice, though not without some uncertainty. The dog stopped barking and just looked at her for a moment, as if considering, and then got down off the railing and disappeared behind some patio furniture on the other side of the balcony.

Juliet breathed a sigh of relief. "So the dog's name is Shannon, eh?"

"No idea," Lassiter said. "I just had to come up with _something_ to call him."

"Er… _what_ now?" she said.

"The dog is an a-hole," he said, matter-of-factly. "I tried everything to get him to leave me alone: talking to him nice, yelling at him, threatening him with my gun. I even tried German commands, just in case he was a failed police dog. Nothing worked. Then I thought…maybe all he's looking for is a little attention. Give him a name. And I did, and whaddaya know…it worked."

She laughed, a little disbelievingly. "And how did you come up with _Shannon?"_ she asked.

"My Uncle Pat had a Shepherd named Shannon a long, long time ago, and that dog was kind of an a-hole, too. Seemed appropriate."

"How exactly do your neighbors manage to keep a _German Shepherd_ on the fifth floor of an apartment complex?" she asked.

"No idea," he said. "Especially since I was _fairly_ certain this building had a 'no pets over thirty pounds' clause in the lease papers. But hell, who _doesn't_ like a good German Shepherd? The thing that gets me, though, is the fact that I've never _once_ heard anybody talk to the dog, or call the dog, or yell at the dog. I've never seen or heard a neighbor from that condo at all. As far as I can tell, the only one that lives there is the dog."

"I'm glad he never came over the railing at you," Juliet said. "German Shepherds rip people to _shreds_ , and they can jump six-foot fences."

"I know, O'Hara, I'm a cop, too," he said, blandly. "But if he came over that short little bit of fencing at me, he would be dead, plain and simple. I like dogs, I truly do, but if the sign on that guy's door says 'Beware of _Dog,'_ then the sign on _my_ door says 'Beware of Gun.' Which one are _you_ more afraid of?"

Juliet shook her head. "Carlton, Carlton, Carlton," she said.

"What?" he said. "If it makes you feel better, I knew I wouldn't have to shoot him. Annoying as hell as he might have been and vicious as he sounded, he always wagged his tail while he stood there yappin' at me."

He gestured to the furniture. "You wanna have a seat? How 'bout a drink? Maybe some water, to try and counteract the headache you're maybe gonna have in the morning?"

"Yeah, water, good idea," she said, dropping into a redwood Adirondack chair with a sigh.

"Be right back," he said, and headed for the kitchen. In the guest room, he was being as quiet as possible as he continued to read. Fortunately, Pepper had curled up on his head for a nap and was asleep, making tiny high-pitched snoring sounds he was fairly certain weren't audible beyond the room. He couldn't hear them from outside, anyway.

He poured a couple of glasses of ice water and carried them out to the balcony. He handed Juliet one and sat down in the other Adirondack chair.

"Thanks," she said, and took a sip, then sat the glass down on the table between them. She kicked the leg of the barbecue grill. "Charcoal grill, huh? That's the best. You ever have anyone over for burgers or wieners or steaks or something?"

"I never have," he said, casually sipping from his own glass of water. "I don't have that many friends."

Actually, the only time he'd used the barbecue since he'd moved into Prospect Gardens was to grill a dragon egg. Steak sounded like a damn good idea. Even a burger wouldn't be at all a bad thing.

"You have _me,"_ Juliet said. "But then, you spend _so much_ time with me you probably prefer not to spend very much downtime in my presence."

"I like spending time with you," he said. "I figure you'd rather not spend any more time with _me."_

"I _like_ spending time with _you,_ Carlton," she said. "You're my best friend."

Alone in the guest room, unseen and unheard, he sighed deeply as traitorous thoughts assaulted him. Pepper awoke, squawked, and dove off of his head and into the stack of books on his desk. The dragonlet emerged a moment later tugging at one of the smaller tomes in the collection, one Lassiter hadn't gotten around to yet, and flipped it open to a specific page. Lassiter looked: it was the recipe for a love potion.

"No, Pepper," he said, severely. "Even if I _wanted_ to…I wouldn't _do_ that to O'Hara."

* * *

 **A/N:** The dog is my next-door neighbor's dog, and everything I told you about him is true, except for the fact that he lives in a house with a yard, not a fifth-floor condo. I only found out today that my uncle's dog's name was actually MOLLY, not Shannon, but I'm going to keep calling him Shannon because that's what he's used to by now. Besides, he looks like a Shannon. In my defense, as to the memory-lapse, I was three when I went to San Antonio and met Molly. The necklace is mine, and no, I never take it off, although it used to have a blue heart-shaped crystal in between the dragons, which was just too girlish for Lassy and, I decided, me. I wish I had a pet dragon.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of _Psych_ and its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

 **Rating:** T+

 **Spoilers:** Hard to say. Could be through entire series, but likely won't be many.

 **A/N:** HEY FARMER BILL! A LITTLE HINT FOR YA! YOU'RE NOT ON A TRACTOR ANYMORE, YOU'RE IN A CAR. IT'LL TURN ON A DIME. YOU DON'T HAVE TO SWOOP OVER INTO THE NEXT LANE IN ORDER TO MAKE A LEFT OR A RIGHT-HAND TURN! YEESH! Sorry. Just one of the annoyances of living in Iowa, and I had to get it off my chest. Carry on.

Just one more thing that pissed me off: My mom comes to my house and watches Fox News. Fox News has a tendency to piss me off just naturally, but this time was worse than normal, because some bitchy-ass lookin' woman was yakkin' about how horrible it will be when women are in combat because, among other shortcomings, THEY CAN'T SHOOT STRAIGHT. I can shoot just as well as any man, and better than most. BullSHIT we can't shoot straight. Like anyone else, we just have to be taught. And…well…maybe, just maybe…most of us need lighter weapons than the average military rifle. But _I_ could still shoot straight with one of 'em. Don't TELL me I couldn't. Of course, most women don't have seventeen inch upper arms. And most of the time MEN fire those weapons from a mount.

* * *

 **Chapter Two: Secrets**

Lassiter set Juliet up with an extra-large UC Santa Barbara t-shirt and sent her to bed. She pulled back the covers and climbed in, grateful for the comfortable mattress, but sat up right away at the feel of something hard under the pillow. She reached beneath it and pulled out a small pepperbox pistol.

"Oh, Carlton," she said, shaking her head in despair. She placed the gun on the bedside table beneath the lamp. She turned off the light and lay down again. She lay with her eyes closed for some minutes until, heeding an impulse she didn't try to identify, she reached under the bed frame and found the gun clipped to it. She pulled it out and looked at it. A Colt Python. With a sigh, she put the gun back in its clutch and opened the drawer of the bedside table and reached in to find the .38 Special inside. Typical Carlton. She wondered how many guns he really had. He claimed eight "hidden spares," but she suspected there were many more than that. He just didn't consider them all "hidden."

She managed to sleep, and in the morning she grabbed her shower as quickly as possible and dressed just as swiftly in last night's clothes, thinking how stupid she was not to have grabbed her go-bag out of her Bug before hopping into Lassiter's car. Lassiter went into his bedroom to grab fresh clothes and then into the bathroom to get his morning shower and change, and while he did, Juliet took the opportunity to explore.

He came out of the bathroom, damp hair springing into loose curls, to find her trying to force the guest room door.

"What are you doing?" he asked, alarmed.

"This door's locked," she said. "Isn't this your guest room?"

"Yeah, I, uh…use it for my office. I was working in there yesterday and I accidentally locked myself out. I'll jimmy it open later."

"Something's flapping around in there. Listen - can you hear it?"

Indeed, he could hear Pepper flapping and screeching indignantly, upset at having been locked away all alone all night long after Lassiter's other self disappeared.

"Must be a bat," Lassiter said, through a dry throat. "I left the window open. I'll get some gloves and when I get the door open I'll grab it and toss it back out."

Juliet looked at him in amazement. "You won't…kill it? Who are you and what have you done with Carlton Lassiter?"

"It's a _bat,_ not a squirrel," he said, as reasonably as possible. "I kinda like bats. Besides, it might be an endangered species. And _you_ wouldn't want me to kill _anything,_ now would you, O'Hara?"

"Well, that's…surprisingly considerate of you, Carlton," she said, nodding like she was impressed. He winced.

"Ouch. Still, I suppose that's fair." He jerked his chin in her direction. "How's your head?"

"Not bad. A little…big."

"I'll put coffee on. Sound good?"

"Sounds _great."_

She followed him into the kitchen. While he set about brewing up a pot of coffee she poked around his cabinets.

She giggled. "So organized," she said. "Alphabetized _and_ color-coordinated. Your pantry would make Martha Stewart jealous."

"I like to know where things are when I need them," he said defensively.

"Nothing wrong with organization," she said. "You're _maybe_ taking it to a bit of an extreme. Let's check out the fridge, shall we?"

She opened up the side-by stainless steel Amana and examined the shelves and crispers. "If I moved one of these tomatoes from the vegetable crisper, where they kind of look like a military review, and put it in the cheese drawer next to the Colby jack cubes, would you be able to leave it there for a few hours or would you twitch and fidget until you'd gone and moved it back?"

"O'Hara, you have had plenty of opportunity before now to observe that I am, in fact, anal retentive. This should come as no surprise to you," he said.

"What's with the package of stew beef in the meat drawer?" she asked.

He was feeding a dragon with it, but he wasn't about to tell _her_ that. "I was planning on making a pot of beef stew this weekend, but I kind of ran out of gumption."

"It's _open_. And it looks like you've taken chunks _out_ of it," she said.

"I…tossed a couple of pieces to Shannon," he said, numbly. "Trying to make friends."

She shrugged, apparently satisfied. She closed the refrigerator door and sat down at the kitchen table.

"Can I make you something for breakfast?" he asked. "I can't make a proper omelet to save my life but I make _awesome_ scrambled eggs with cheese and whatever else you want thrown in with them."

"Why can't you make an omelet?" Juliet asked. "I learned how to do that in seventh grade Home Ec."

"It's not because I don't know how," he said. "It's because I make eggs with either half and half or heavy cream - whichever I happen to have on hand. I make 'em with quite a bit of it, and they don't stick together. Kind of scramble themselves, actually. But they taste utterly spectacular."

"Well, now I think I've _gotta_ try 'em," Juliet said.

"What do you want on 'em?" he asked.

"What have you got?"

"Ah…ham, green peppers…red peppers…jalapenos…and pretty much any vegetable you might want."

"Ham and jalapenos sounds good to me," she said, rather eagerly.

Working swiftly and efficiently, Lassiter got out the ingredients, a bowl, a fork, a spatula, a frying pan, and set to work. He cubed up ham and set it to fry, chopped up jalapenos and added them, then whipped up the eggs with heavy cream and poured them into a second frying pan he pulled out from the drawer below the stove. He cooked up the eggs and scrambled them, then added about a cup of a mix of shredded cheeses. He dumped the cooked ham and jalapenos on top of this, and after the cheese was properly melted dumped the entire thing onto a dinner plate. He got out another fork and set the plate down in front of Juliet, then poured her a cup of coffee.

"There you go, Mademoiselle," he said, grandly. "Eggs à la Lassiter."

She forked up a bite and put it in her mouth. She closed her eyes and savored the rich flavor. "Mmm… that's as good as _sex,"_ she said. He choked. She giggled. "Sorry. But it is good. Where did _you_ learn to cook?"

"My therapist told me to take up non-law enforcement related hobbies," he said, shyly. "Cooking was one of the ones I came up with. I liked it, but I didn't really stick with it. Not having anybody to cook _for_ is kinda depressing."

"Well, if you make everything as well as you do _this_ , I'll quite _happily_ come over and let you cook for me," Juliet said.

He thought about it. "My _therapist_ would be happy I took it up again," he said, slowly. "Right now all I've really got going on is tap class once a week and book collecting: he wants me to expand my horizons as much as possible."

He also had the sorcery, but he wasn't going to tell Juliet _or_ his therapist about that. As long as he could keep Pepper corralled and quiet and the guest room off-limits, there was no particular reason not to allow Juliet to come over.

"I can't cook worth a damn," Juliet said. "How did _you_ get so good?"

"It's just like chemistry," he said. "I always got good grades in that. In fact, I toyed with the idea of becoming a forensic specialist. Following a recipe is really methodical and precise, and you know how I do when things are methodical and precise. Then after you figure out how to make it the way the professionals tell you to, you can play around with it and find out how _you_ like it."

The sorcery was the same way, although he doubted he would ever play around with his own additions to recipes. That was more _exactly_ like chemistry, and a misstep could potentially be deadly.

"Aren't you going to have anything?" Juliet asked.

"I typically make do with just a Clif bar in the morning," he said.

"You know what you should do?" Juliet said. "You should go jimmy that door open and get that bat out of there. Who knows how long it's been there? It's probably pooped all over everything."

His other self had let Pepper out of the window to do the necessary outside before disappearing, but that had been a long time ago, and undoubtedly Pepper was, at the very least, feeling the need again.

"You're right," he said. "I'll go do that."

He grabbed a butter knife out of the silverware drawer and headed into the living room. Juliet finished up her omelet and coffee and followed him in, which he did not like at all. He jimmied the lock and slipped inside, opening the door only just as far enough as he had to. He prayed to God and Sweet Lady Justice she didn't see or smell the tall jimsonweed growing on the table next to the door. Why he had poisonous nightshade growing in his guest room would be damned hard to explain.

"Pepper, calm the fuck down," he whispered sharply, and the little dragon stopped flapping and screeching and landed on the desk. "I know you don't like being locked up, but it's necessary. I'll let you out when she's gone. Now do you need to go out? I'll open the window for you."

He did so, and the little dragon flew out. Lassiter exited the room, sliding out again through the smallest possible opening.

"Who were you talking to in there?" Juliet asked. His eyes widened.

"Uh…myself. It's a big mess in there - shit all over the place, boxes everywhere. I stubbed my toe and cussed myself out."

Please God don't let her have actually heard what he'd _said._

She shrugged. "What are you _hiding_ in there? What is it you don't want me to see?"

"Just the mess," he said. "It's embarrassing."

"You…Carlton OCD Lassiter…have a mess in your guest room. I find that hard to believe."

It wasn't much of a mess, just slightly disorganized, at least by his standards, partly because new books and accoutrements arrived almost daily and partly because there was a tiny dragon constantly messing up whatever order he managed to put things in.

"Yeah, well…I'm trying to clean it up. It's stuff I've been hoarding for years - decades in some cases. I need to sort through it and get rid of most of it."

"Got anything good in there?" she asked.

"My gun vault," he said, before he could think better of it.

"Ah ha! I _knew_ you had more than eight guns. How many do you have, really?"

"Er…actually, I've never counted. Somewhere between twenty and thirty? More than that, probably, when you count all the ones I keep for defense. The ones in the vault are just collector's pieces."

"What are your best ones?" she asked. "Show me."

"Er, ahhh…okay, sure…I'll go get 'em. Just the ones I like best."

He slipped back into the guest room, silently cautioned Pepper to silence again, and opened up his gun vault. He got out his .357 Magnum, his 1870 Colt Army revolver, his beloved Desert Eagle, his Remington 788 rifle, the 10-gauge shotgun he'd built himself with the fancy laminated Rueger stock. One at a time, he began carrying them out to the living room. As he picked up the last one, the gold-finish Desert Eagle, he looked around the guest room and sighed. He didn't want to keep secrets from his partner. If he was ever going to tell anyone about this hobby it would be her, but…well…who knew how she would take it? She seemed reasonably open to the concept of the paranormal, but witchcraft? That was a slightly different story from psychics. She might be violently opposed to the idea. She got a little bit freaked out that time they dealt with the possible demonic possession, so she didn't seem likely to like anything considered "dark arts."

He went back out to the living room. Juliet had the Remington 788 in hand and was peering through the scope.

"This would be a great hunting rifle," she said.

"Well, it would be a great way to ensure that whatever you shot at would definitely be dead," Lassiter said, "but it blows gaping huge holes in the meat and, unfortunately, it has a _hair_ trigger. I don't keep it loaded, but I'm just as happy to have a trigger lock on it nevertheless."

"Oh, I see," she said, and put the gun down, leaning it against the back of the loveseat. She caught sight of the gun in Lassiter's hand and gasped.

"Is that a fifty-caliber?" she said. "Carlton, that gun's illegal in this state."

"Grandfather clause," he said calmly. "I bought and registered it before the ban."

"Oh. Let me see that beauty."

He handed the automatic over. She held it out and sighted down the barrel. "The Israeli Military Industry really knows how to make a helluva handgun, don't they?" she said. "Do you have ammo for it?"

"Yeah. Never fired it, though."

"Oh, what I wouldn't give to fire this sucker," she said. "The power would be orgasmic, at least if I could keep it from hitting me in the head when it recoils."

"To be totally honest with you? I'm not sure if I could keep the kickback from hittin' _me_ in the head," he said. "And I'm bigger than you, so I would _guess_ I'm at least a little bit stronger. But yeah, I'd love to see what it's like to fire it, just once. Don't think there's any place in California that'll let you."

"We could take it somewhere deep into the woods, shoot into a tree," she said, hopefully.

"We'd have to take it out into Redwood National Park, I think. Any regular tree the bullet would probably just go straight through."

She made a moue of disappointment. "Dammit."

"We could maybe take it up to Cachuma or someplace like that," he said. "Find a quite spot and fire it into the water. The Mythbusters proved that water stops a fifty caliber bullet pretty much cold."

"Oo! Yes, lets!" Juliet said, excitedly.

"Maybe next weekend?" he said. "I'd have to do some looking on the internet to find a place that's quiet enough for us to actually fire a gun this big a couple of times without bringing concerned citizens and park rangers and county sheriffs down on top of us."

"It's a date, partner," she said, and held out her hand. He took it and shook with her.

"I should get you to your car now," he said. She made another moue of disappointment.

"This weekend has been so much fun," she said. "I'm not really ready for it to be over."

"I know what you mean," he said, honestly, even if he couldn't honestly see why she would feel that way. "I had a lot of fun. But I, uh…I've got a lot of things I've got to get accomplished before work tomorrow, and I need to get busy on that."

Yet another look of disappointment crossed her pretty face. "Oh, okay. I should let you get to work, then."

He slipped his shoes on, grabbed his keys, and led her to the door. She tripped over something on the way out.

"Carlton! There's a… _package_ …at your door," she said in surprise.

He picked up the brown paper parcel quickly. "Ah, yes. Just something I ordered."

"That arrived on a _Sunday?"_ she said, incredulously. "Without a shipping label?"

"I ordered it from a local shop. It was hand-delivered," he lied gamely.

"Are you _sure_ that's what it is?" she said, sounding concerned. "You're always saying how proud you are of how many people want to kill you."

"Oh yeah," he said, blushing furiously. "I recognize the wrapping." He put the package on the end table next to the door and stepped out, closing the door quite firmly behind him. "Shall we go?"

"Don't take this the wrong way, Carlton, but you've been acting kind of funny, lately," Juliet said.

"Be honest, O'Hara: Don't I _always_ act kind of funny?" he said, trying for jocularity.

"Not like this," she said, quite seriously. "You're all…twitchy and secretive. I kinda get the impression you're hiding something from me. Something big."

 _Tell her,_ a voice in his head whispered. He took a second to confirm that it was his own.

 _Are you nuts? Don't you dare,_ another voice said, just as much his own.

"I've just got a lot on my mind right now, is all," he said. "Kinda stressed out."

"What about?" she asked.

He sighed. "Everything and nothing," he said, the lie coming with remarkable smoothness. If this kept up, he could start giving lessons to Spencer. "Honestly, I think there's something wrong with me. But I'll be going to see my therapist soon, and I'll talk it out with him. And yes, I'll do whatever he tells me to do, even if he tells me to see a shrink."

"Good," she said, sounding relieved. "Make sure of it. All right, let's get to gettin'."

He dropped her off outside Westwood Lanes, and saw her into her Bug and on her way home, and then drove back to Prospect Gardens, feeling rather reluctant, actually. He _had_ had fun. He should do that kind of thing more often - his therapist would agree with that wholeheartedly. Pepper might have objections.

He rode the elevator up to the fifth floor, even though he _had_ cracked open the book on teleportation. That particular discipline seemed particularly dodgy to him, and he doubted he'd be doing a great deal of practical exercise in that arena. He opened his door and picked up the package on the end table, closed the door behind him and locked it, then headed for the guest room door. He put the package down on top of the hi-fi cabinet next to the wall and opened the guest room door.

A tiny black figure exploded out of the room and flapped into his face, growling ferociously if shrilly. He actually took a couple of steps back in the face of the little dragon's fury.

"Pepper! Now, stop!" he said, grabbing the creature with both hands to stop its assault. "I'm sorry you had to be locked up all night, but you know as well as I do we had no choice. People can't know about you, Pepper. It's scary enough when you go outside. Our only salvation is how tiny and dark you are - hopefully if anyone actually sees you they mistake you for a bat."

It raised the question of what exactly he would do if Pepper turned out to be a psychedelically-colored male dragon upon maturity, but that was a bridge to cross if and when he came to it.

"You hungry? I bet you are. Come on," he said, and let the dragon go as he turned and headed for the kitchen. Pepper flapped after him and, as usual, landed on his head and fussed around until there was a nice nest up there.

Lassiter opened up the fridge and pulled a couple of cubes of stew beef out of the meat drawer. He held them in his open palm and Pepper fluttered down to perch on his fingers and chomp them down with a certain dragonly gusto. Lassiter closed up the fridge and sat down at the kitchen table to let Pepper finish up the beef. The little dragon let out a tiny burp when the cubes were gone.

"Excuse you," Lassiter said, and stood up as Pepper transferred back to the top of his head. He headed back for the guest room and picked up the new package along the way. He sat down at the desk inside, looked at the package for a moment, and then with shrug he ripped it open. A piece of vellum fell out, along with a black velvet-covered jeweler's box.

He read the note, written in that script he now knew so well.

 _You should have opened this when you were still in the company of Ms. O'Hara,_ it read. _No matter: you can just as easily give it to her tomorrow at work. Hers is, of course, the one that does not fit you._

By this point in the game, he wasn't even surprised. He opened the jeweler's box. Two rings were inside, both fairly large, although one was clearly larger than the other. They were both silver - or perhaps platinum? That was awfully shiny silver - and the larger one had a cabochon of malachite upon which a shining silver dragon in Oriental style was inlaid. The dragon had a very small but very brilliant ruby for an eye and its single clawed hand was gripping a tiny egg-shaped opal. The smaller one featured a cabochon of lapis upon which a bird in flight - rather a large-looking bird, perhaps a bird of prey, but obviously not an eagle or a hawk; something rather pretty, a phoenix, perhaps, in keeping with the dragon? - was inlaid, silver with wings and a head of rhodochrosite, nice and pink, a color Juliet would love, particularly against the rich, dark blue.

He took the dragon ring out of the box and slipped it onto his left index finger. It fit perfectly, not that he'd had any doubt that it would. He wondered what purpose it was supposed to serve. He supposed he could wear it in public, out of character or not. He could tell people a crazy relative had given it to him. He looked down at the other ring. Explaining that would be…impossible. He closed the lid of the box with a snap. Pepper fluttered down to the desktop from the top of his head with an irritated squawk. At that moment, something hard and fairly heavy dropped onto the top of his head.

" _Ouch!"_

He reached up to rub the spot, casting around for what had fallen on him, and saw nothing. His hand, on the other hand, came into contact with something immediately: another piece of vellum. He pulled it down from his head and read the message. It was written in all-caps.

 _GIVE IT TO HER, MORON._

"Okay, okay, sheesh," he muttered, rubbing his sore head. "You don't have to hit me over the head with it."

* * *

 **A/N:** I have a ring like the ones described, but there's a wolf on it, set against onyx with turquoise inlaid in the silver. I have a dragon _pendant_ such as the ring described, but as it has a bezel of gold designed to look pretty much like Irish lace, it is too girly for Lassiter to wear, or, indeed, myself. A pity. I really like where this story is going. I have SO many ideas for it, it's not even funny. I even know how it's supposed to end, at least at this point, and THAT, my friends, is an astonishing rarity for _moi_. That said, I'm taking a bit of a step back from it for the next little while, just for a little while, so I can focus some attention on stories I have neglected: namely, Objects and Rear View. I'm approaching their endings, and as is usual for me, they are making my gears to grind. That, and the fact that I've had so many absorbing ideas lately, it's been easy to procrastinate. But I SHALL crank them out, this I swear on my father's grave. And now suddenly I'm kinda depressed. Never swear on somebody's grave; it tends to remind you of the fact that that person is, indeed, gone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of _Psych_ and its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

 **Rating:** T+

 **Spoilers:** Hard to say. Could be through entire series, but likely won't be many.

 **A/N:** Now we're becoming a futurefic. Also, yeah…that resolution to put this puppy aside for a little while? Lasted about ten minutes. You have a right to be disappointed in me. I kind of am.

* * *

 **Chapter Three: Holy Hell**

Nervous. Sweet Lady Justice, was he nervous.

He had to man up. He had to give it to her. How would he explain it? It wasn't her birthday. Christmas was still a couple of months off. And then there was the subject. How does Carlton "Real World" Lassiter explain a ring with a phoenix on it? He considered slinking away and tossing the jeweler's box into a dumpster somewhere, but only for a moment. He needed no more metaphysical bricks dropped onto his head.

With a gulp, he approached her desk, grateful that his hesitance and nervousness should play off as natural shyness. He placed the jeweler's box in the middle of her blotter and she looked up.

"What's this?" she asked.

He scratched at the back of his neck. "Just a little something I got you," he said, in a very quiet voice. "Thought you'd like it."

She looked down at the box again. "Oh…kay," she said, drawing the word out into several syllables. She picked up the box and opened it up. She gasped. "Oh, Carlton. It's beautiful."

"Glad you like it," he said, and was chagrined to hear a decided squeak in his voice. He cleared his throat.

"Is that a…a _phoenix?_ What made you pick this?" she said.

"Well, you…kind of remind me of a bird," he said. "Bright and chirpy but also kind of…flying high and free. I thought a phoenix was a pretty good match to you. They're, you know, kind of fiery, like you."

Okay, something was clearly working on him from somewhere else. Lies never came to him so easily before, even though this one was, he had to admit, predicated on the complete and utter truth. Even if it was truth he would _never_ have uttered willingly.

"Oh, that's so _sweet,"_ she said, beaming at him.

"I, uh, got one, too," he said, and showed her his ring. "I thought that way we could, you know, touch 'em together and activate our Wonder Twins powers."

"Why is yours a dragon?" she asked.

"I didn't know what to get for myself," he said. "The jeweler talked me into a dragon. Said I looked like a fire breather, and, you know, I kinda liked that idea."

"Is this what was in that package you got yesterday?" she asked.

"Yeah. I wasn't ready to let you see 'em. Wanted to know they were exactly what I ordered, first."

She slipped her ring on her left index finger, like he had his. "It fits perfectly. How did you know what ring size I wear?" she asked. _"I_ don't even know."

"Wild ass guess," he said. "I told him to make it for a _'really tiny woman.' "_

She slapped him on the arm, but she was grinning. "Jerk. I'm not _that_ small, Stilts."

She held up her left fist. "Wonder Twins powers…?" she ventured, smiling.

He bumped rings with her. "Go," he said, and smiled back at her.

He turned to head back to his desk across the bullpen aisle, but Juliet called him back. "Carlton?"

"Yeah?" he said, half-turning. She had the strangest look on her face. Speculative, a little uncomfortable, a little…longing? No, surely not.

She shook her head. "Never mind," she said, rather quickly, and waved him off.

He sat down at his desk, slightly perplexed by the exchange. He turned on his computer. Immediately, words began scrolling across the screen in large font that looked suspiciously like the handwriting of his mysterious mentor.

 _The rings put you in touch with your inner spirit, which in turn puts you in touch with your innermost feelings and desires,_ it read. _**You**_ _required this because therapists have been trying to get you to admit to your innermost feelings for the last couple of_ _ **decades**_ _and it's high time you finally did. As to Ms. O'Hara, she has been repressing something for a good long while now, and it has caused her a great deal of discomfort. It's time she felt the relief of admission. What she_ _ **does**_ _with that admission, I'm afraid, is entirely up to her._

 _Dear Sweet Lady Justice, not at work,_ Lassiter thought frantically, and the computer screen cleared itself to show a new message in the same large, flowing font.

 _Don't worry: Even if one of your coworkers were to look directly at your computer screen_ , _they would see nothing but a Facebook page for one Martin Chase, your current prime suspect in the burglary on West Montecito._

Lassiter heaved a sigh of relief and the screen cleared to show that page. He got down to work.

An hour later he and O'Hara got a call, and they climbed into the Crown Vic and headed out. For some reason, Juliet felt compelled to place her hand on his shoulder as they traveled. The contact made him particularly nervous, in part because it gave him thoughts about where _else_ he might like her to place her hand. He tried desperately to push these thoughts away. Usually it wasn't all that difficult. Now it seemed damn near impossible.

All in all, he was glad when the work day ended and he went home to feed Pepper again. The day was nice but slightly chilly, so he changed into his black hooded sweatshirt (4x - he liked his baggy clothes to be _really_ baggy) and headed out onto the deck with a glass of bourbon in hand. The neighbor's dog popped up at the railing and started barking at him.

"Hi, Shannon," he greeted, and the dog settled down instantly and disappeared to the other side of the balcony. He settled into an Adirondack chair and sipped his drink. He rested his head against the seatback and closed his eyes.

The next days were strange and rather heady. Juliet continued to act different, most of the time subtly, at other times drastically. She never crossed any lines that let him know what exactly was going on with her, but there were suspicions. Suspicions that…didn't make much sense, really. When the weekend rolled around again, they went up to a secluded lake Lassiter had found via the internet and took turns firing the fifty-caliber Desert Eagle handgun, the power of which both of them found thoroughly exciting. When they returned to Lassiter's condo that evening, where he had promised to make her a meal of corned beef and cabbage, there was a brown paper package waiting for him outside the door.

"Boy, you get a lot of those," Juliet said, wonderingly.

 _You have no idea,_ Lassiter thought. He took the package inside, swiftly scooped Pepper into his coat pocket, and took package, gun, and dragonlet into the guest room to unpack while Juliet made herself at home on the loveseat in front of the blackened TV. Lassiter put the Desert Eagle back into his gun vault, released Pepper from his pocket, and sat down at his desk to open the package. A silver necklace fell out, with two intricately-detailed silver phoenixes in flight bracketing a cut crystal of bright pink rhodochrosite. The note that fluttered out with it read: _This is for her. Make her wear it ALWAYS. She means too much to you for her to go unprotected._

"Protected from what?" he mumbled, and the words on the parchment changed.

 _Pray you never find out._

Passing a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair, he got up with the necklace in his other hand and passed out the crack he'd opened of the door and into the living room. He hesitated, looking at the side of her head, at her profile, fresh and pretty as always, until he began to feel a sense of gathering over his head and he knew something was preparing to fall on top of him. "All right, all right," he said out loud, and started forward.

"What's all right, Carlton?" Juliet said, looking his direction.

"Oh, just berating myself, as usual," he said glibly. "I'm always egging myself on or beating myself up until I make myself do something I don't want to do or I'm too shy to do. This is a case of the latter."

She smiled, beaming, at him. "What are you too shy to do?" she asked.

"I've got something to give you again. I wanted to give this to you with the ring, but it wasn't ready yet and after a long, drawn-out argument with myself I decided not to wait for it." He held the necklace up before her eyes.

"Oh, Carlton. It's beautiful," she said, reaching out for it. He let her take it.

"I hoped you'd like it. I kind of agonized over it a bit. I settled on rhodochrosite because in the end I felt you were a pink person more than you were a blue person and it tied it in with the phoenixes more, even though the primary color of the ring is lapis, but the jeweler had this denim lapis that would've been absolutely gorgeous: a little more faded than the ring, a little older-looking, kind of worn, maybe."

"That does sound pretty, but you were right: I _love_ pink, and I think it really matches the phoenixes," she said. "Could you help me get it on?"

He went over and fastened the clasp behind her neck. She fluffed her ponytail out. "Thanks. Did you get one, too?"

 _His_ necklace was currently invisible. He was tempted to say he didn't have one. But the words came out of his mouth before he could stop them.

"I do, but I didn't want you to see it before yours came in. It's in my bedroom."

"Go get it. I wanna see it," she said, eagerly.

"All right," he said, and disappeared into his bedroom, where he broke the spell of invisibility. He checked himself out in the mirror. The silver dragons and the cut jade crystal lay against his dark chest hair and looked severely out of character. Still, now that she knew about it he had to show her, didn't he? And let's be honest, it would kind of be a relief, wouldn't it?

He returned to the living room, feeling desperately shy. He fingered the necklace nervously as he approached her.

"Here it is," he said, quietly.

"Oh…Carlton. I love it. The dragons, the jade… Jade is such a beautiful stone. And it matches your ring: the jade is just a little lighter, a little more faded, a little more worn, maybe, than the malachite."

"Yeah. That was another reason it was kind of hard to pass up the denim lapis for yours."

She stood up and gave him a light little kiss on the cheek, which caused him to blush furiously. "Well I love it, both of them, and I thank you for giving this to me. I don't know what I did to deserve it, but I really appreciate it. I'll never take it off."

As usual, Lassiter worked the holidays, and was voluntarily excluded from the Christmas Secret Santa draw at the station. That didn't stop Spencer from giving him a gag gift, as usual - thankfully _not_ a snow globe this year, but what the hell was the point of giving him one of those ball-in-a-plastic-gadget things for cats to chase around and around? Oh well, maybe Pepper would get a kick out of it - and of course O'Hara gave him something. A small plaster statue, standing no more than a foot tall, of a dragon. Dark blue in color, faintly iridescent, standing with its front feet on its coiled tail, with a light blue jewel on its forehead and pale blue eyes.

Shyly, Juliet pushed a hair out of her eyes. "You said you're a fire breather, and I agree with that, so it seemed kind of appropriate," she said.

"It's…beautiful," he said, honestly, "but it's awfully high quality for a plaster mold - you couldn't have gotten it anywhere but at one of those high-end collectables stores like that David's Cigar Shop in the Mills Crossing Mall. And at this size…it had to be kind of expensive."

"Oh, and I suppose you got this ring and the matching necklace out of a bubble gum machine," she said, holding the phoenixes up in front of his eyes. "I'm sure this was _much_ less expensive than those. Don't worry about it, Carlton: I'm very fiscally responsible. Particularly now that I'm no longer paying _Shawn's_ way in life."

He smiled feebly at her. "You know how to draw a dragon, don't you?" he asked.

"Um…I've done it before, but I can't say I'm especially good at it," she said.

"Well, what you've gotta do is cautiously approach the dragon, offer it a Snickers bar or a little sister, and draw while it happily munches away. If you have enough Snickers bars or little sisters, you can eventually get it to actually pose for you."

She laughed and smacked him on the arm. "Have you told that one to Lauren?"

"Not yet," he said.

"Yeah, I bet."

He put the dragon statue on his desk next to his pen cup, in part so O'Hara could see it every day and know it meant something to him, but mostly so Pepper wouldn't get the wrong idea about it. He had a feeling the little dragon had a jealous streak. It also allowed him to let others at the station get the occasional glimpse of the necklace and ring - he now had a clear penchant for dragons, perhaps still wildly out of character, but at least evidenced. Honestly he had come to like them, at least the small and harmless variety. Pepper was annoying at times but a character, to say the least.

His shift that day ended just as the annual station Christmas party got underway, and Spencer was at O'Hara's desk at the time, wearing a Santa hat and plastic elf ears and oozing up to her as he always did when he had her trapped and trying to get her to take him back. He invariably went about it the wrong way - in other words, the exact way he "wooed" her in the first place, with sleezy, only half-joking come-ons she should have smacked him for. She was responding with gaiety and vivaciousness, clearly in the holiday spirit and, just perhaps, feeling the desire to start things over despite whatever had brought her to her senses about the con man months ago. Lassiter couldn't stand to see it, and he hadn't been planning to stick around for the festivities anyway, so he grabbed his coat and headed for the door. If Juliet was going to get back together with Dippy the Christmas Elf, he'd rather not see it happen.

Guster came up past Booking as he was heading out. Gus nodded to him and said "Merry Christmas." He set himself to push past the pharmaceutical salesman, but he stopped short. That wasn't fair. Gus wasn't a bad guy at all. Lassiter even kind of liked him, a little bit at least, despite who he preferred to hang out with daily for some doubtlessly masochistic reason. So he nodded back and wished Gus a merry Christmas too before making for his car at high speed.

At home, he fed Pepper, gave the little dragon the cat toy, which Pepper seemed to like a great deal, score one for Spencer all so very unintentionally, and went into the guest room to study for a few hours before going to bed without eating supper. He was too damn depressed, thinking about O'Hara linking back up with that gutless liar Spencer. He lay there in bed for a long time, wide awake and restless, before a voice whispered inside his head.

 _Go for a walk,_ it said. It was his own voice - sounded like it, anyway - but still he knew it wasn't himself thinking it. Still, it sounded like a better idea than laying here doing nothing but fretting, so he got up, dressed, and headed out the door. It was late at night and the streets were quite dark despite the streetlights at regular intervals and the lights from the buildings he would pass, so he allowed Pepper to join him, riding perched on his shoulder. Indeed, the dragon's hot little body provided a modicum of comfort in the chill night air, snuggled against his neck.

The voice in his head gave him direction, and he followed without question, only vaguely curious where he was being led. He wasn't terribly surprised when he realized he was headed for O'Hara's apartment, something he recognized long before he hove into sight of the duplex.

 _Okay, now what?_ he thought as he came to a stop outside one of her windows. He hadn't spent much time in her house overall, and none in her bedroom, but he rather thought this was her bedroom window nonetheless. It was dark, as was the rest of the apartment. Either she wasn't home yet or she was in bed.

 _Now, open your mouth. Your heart knows the words you've never heard,_ the voice said. _You have a natural affinity for music, and it for you. Strange that you should have limited yourself merely to people like Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby - your soul cries out for a wider selection of songs to sing. Your heart knows the ones that express what you feel inside._

Lassiter didn't sing. He never had, and he never would. And then he felt the gathering over his head. Stubborn, he held out. And then the unseen and unreal dropped onto his head like a brick. "Ow! You're not at all subtle, are you?" he complained, rubbing his head. "I don't know what business it is of yours whether or not I sing to O'Hara."

 _Just do it, Sonny-boy,_ the voice said, and he bridled at that. He was getting close to forty-seven. Who had the audacity to call him Sonny-boy? _Someone who's a whole hell of a lot older than that, obviously, detective,_ the voice said.

 _How much older?_ he thought

 _You really want to know? All right, there's no particular harm in it. I was born in 1287. You can do the math, despite the dyslexia that makes mathematics difficult for you._

 _1287?_ he thought, incredulously. _So you're seven hundred and twenty-eight, right? Yeah, right._

 _Yeah. Right. As of November 18, in point of fact. Just as you will be forty-seven on February the 22_ _nd_ _. My circumstances are…unusual, although not exactly unique._

His mind went blank. He shook his head vigorously, upsetting Pepper, who flapped off of his shoulder and then resettled when his paroxysm ceased. _If you need a little more information about me,_ the voice said, _then at least I can tell you that I have spent the bulk of my excessively long life as a medical doctor of one form or another, of course ever limited by the knowledge or lack thereof of the time in which I was living. My earliest forays into the world of medicine were as a plague doctor, and my survival of that dark time was one of mere good fortune, I believe now that I know of genetics, and not due in any large measure to the mask filled with herbs that I wore to protect me back then. Most recently I have practiced as a neurosurgeon. As you might imagine, my unusually long study in the medical arts have made me quite an accomplished doctor, even as limited as I have been._

 _So I take it you're a sorcerer or a witch or something like it,_ Lassiter thought. _Living in the period that you supposedly did, how did you avoid burning at the stake?_

The voice in his head chuckled grimly. _For one thing, I came to magic fairly late in the natural span of my life, when such things were no less persecuted but I had, at least, developed wisdom enough to hide my activities. Then, too, it is extremely difficult to catch an actual witch or sorcerer. Even should you discover them and what they are about, doing anything about it is well nigh impossible. Although it took me some centuries to assume mastery of the mystic arts, it didn't take all that long at all to become good enough to defend myself from mundanes._

 _So, what am I then, the sorcerer's apprentice?_

 _Unofficially,_ the voice said. _Though you probably won't like the idea, you are something of a hobby, one I rather needed. I have taken proper apprentices over the centuries, but always something went wrong. Either they turned out not to have enough natural aptitude to progress beyond a certain point or they experienced something in their lives that twisted them, made them less than noble of intent. Proper sorcerers often do find themselves in such situations, I fear. That, above all other reasons, is why I have not taken you on as a proper apprentice. You are a noble man, with a strong concept of justice and right and wrong that I_ think _would hold you through the worst of situations, but I'm not yet confident enough in that natural aptitude of yours to take the gamble. It may become necessary down the line: indeed, I believe you may be approaching that point. You are turning out to be far stronger than I had originally expected, and your determination might well make up whatever difference there is to be made up. Now, enough talk. Sing._

It had the definite feel of a command issued by a superior officer, and Lassiter could not deny it. He opened his mouth and words began pouring out of it in sentences he'd never heard, to music playing in his head he did not recognize.

 _Maybe we'll never be seen together_

 _At night on a crowded street._

 _I may never reach across your body_

 _To kill the light for you to sleep._

 _Maybe I'll never watch you dressing_

 _Or won't sound too familiar on the phone,_

 _But I can touch your hand accidentally_

 _And take that moment home._

 _That's as close as I'll get to loving you,_

 _Even though there's nothing else I'd rather do._

 _I can dream, I can hope, I can scheme, but still I know_

 _That's as close as I'll get to loving you._

 _I won't be there if you need holding,_

 _But I'm sure that he can pull you through._

 _But I can sing this song to everybody_

 _And pretend it's not about you._

 _That's as close as I'll get to loving you,_

 _Even though there's nothing else I'd rather do._

 _I can dream, I can hope, I can scheme, but still I know_

 _That's as close as I'll get to loving you._

 _That's as close as I'll get to loving you,_

 _Even though there's nothing else I'd rather do._

 _I can dream, I can hope, I can scheme, but still I know_

 _That's as close as I'll get to…_

 _Yeah, that's as close as I'll get to…_

 _That's as close as I'll get to loving you._

At some point during the middle of this song the light went on in the room behind the window. At the end, Juliet pushed open the casement and peered outside. Lassiter faded back into the shadows by the neighboring building and just looked at her, in her homemade pajamas, her hair slightly disheveled. So beautiful. She looked around, clearly perplexed, and then withdrew back into the house. But she left the window open.

 _Well, that one was a little bit depressing, don't you think, Mister Negativity?_ the voice said, and he realized it was no longer attempting to sound even remotely like his own. _Why don't you try again? And be a bit more upbeat this time._

Again, Lassiter didn't know what he was going to sing until he sang it, and even as he sang it he had no idea what song it was, but whosever song it was he thought it sort of pretty, a song he would've liked if he'd ever chanced to hear it. Juliet popped her head back out the window, but he was still in dark shadow. She leaned on the windowpane with her chin resting on her crossed arms and a dreamy expression on her face as she listened.

 _Did you ever love somebody_

 _So much that the earth moved?_

 _Did you ever love somebody_

 _Even though it hurt to?_

 _Did you ever love somebody?_

 _Nothing else your heart could do?_

 _Did you ever love somebody_

 _Who never knew?_

 _Did you ever lay your head down_

 _On the shoulder of a good friend,_

 _And you had to look away somehow,_

 _Had to hide the way you felt for them?_

 _Have you ever prayed the day would come_

 _You'll hear them say they feel it too?_

 _Have you ever loved somebody_

 _Who never knew?_

 _And if_

 _You did,_

 _Well, you know I'd understand._

 _I could,_

 _I would,_

 _More than anybody can._

 _Did you ever love somebody_

 _So much that the earth moved?_

 _Did you ever love somebody_

 _Even though it hurt to?_

 _Did you ever love somebody?_

 _Nothing else your heart could do?_

 _Did you ever love somebody_

 _Like I love you?_

 _Like I love you?_

He fell silent. She seemed to wait for another song, but when none were forthcoming she said, quietly, "I don't know who you are or why you're doing this, but thank you for the serenade. I'm glad you don't seem to have bothered my neighbors."

She closed the window and the light went out. Feeling a smile coming on, all unbidden, Lassiter turned and walked back to Prospect Gardens.

The next morning was Christmas Eve, and Lassiter had to work. Juliet was _supposed_ to be off for the next two days, so he certainly didn't expect to see her come walking in just a few minutes after he hung up his coat and sat down to work. She gestured to him, beckoning him to come join her off in a secluded corner of the bullpen over by the coat rack. Confused, he joined her there.

"I had a visitor last night," she said, and he immediately grew wary.

"Oh yeah?" he said.

"Yeah. I didn't know who it was, so I did some poking around this morning, looking for clues. I found a couple of footprints in the mud next to my neighbor's house, in their flower garden. Looked to be about a size twelve-narrow. You know, I don't know too many people who wear that particular size, and I'm almost positive my visitor was someone I know well."

He didn't know what to say, so he just stood there, stupidly.

Juliet looked up. The station was still decorated for the Christmas party, and a sprig of mistletoe hung above their heads. "Oh look - mistletoe," she said, and looked back at him, a coy smile curving her lips. He was still too stunned to react as she stretched up and planted quite a passionate kiss directly on his lips.

 _Hey, Dippy Dan, are you gonna kiss her back or what?_ He didn't know if it was his own thought or not. Still, it gave him volition, and he put his hands on her waist and leaned in to deepen the kiss. It went on for a long time, until a throat cleared behind them, and they broke apart guiltily to see Karen Vick standing there, giving them the Look. She wasn't supposed to be at work _either,_ but that was Murphy's Law for you.

"Chief - we…" Lassiter began, voice squeaking. The Chief raised a finger to cut him off.

"Believe me, I don't want to hear it," she said, severely. "I'm going to look the other way on this, but the Christmas party is _over,_ get me? I'd better not see any more Kissy-Licky-Touchy-Sucky in the bullpen when one or both of you is on duty, understood?"

Lassiter and Juliet shared a look, confused on his part, elated on hers. "Understood, Chief," Juliet said, grinning.

"Good," Vick said. "Good luck to both of you." And she walked away toward her office.

Juliet squeezed Lassiter's hand. "Come to my house for dinner tonight?" she said. "I'm not as good a cook as you are, but I can broil up a damn good steak and bake a mean potato."

"O-okay," he said, blushing furiously.

"Good. I'll see you then," she said, and squeezed his hand again. Then she blew him a kiss and walked away. "By the way, you're a damn good singer," she called back over her shoulder.

The rest of the workday passed in something of a daze. He answered calls efficiently but he was running on autopilot. After watch he ran home long enough to clean himself up, shave again, change his clothes and then feed Pepper before he grabbed his keys and headed out. He went into the parking garage and opened the door of his Fusion, but before he put more than a foot on the floorboard inside he pulled it back out and closed the door and locked it. It was a little chilly, but he kind of liked the cold - Santa Barbara's version of cold weather, anyway - and it was a nice walk from Prospect Gardens to Juliet's duplex.

Dinner at Juliet's was nice. The steak was good, medium rare, and the baked potato was just what an Irish boy liked, and there were green beans and split top potato rolls that were absolutely delicious. Juliet served some type of red wine with the meal. He wasn't a big fan of wine - kind of tasted like sugared and peppered horse spit, to him - but he drank. Afterwards she led him to her couch in the living room and sat down beside him, and in short order had divested him of his jacket, tie, and shoulder holster. Then she proceeded to work on getting his shirt off.

Whatever he had expected of this evening, it was not this. She had hands all over his chest and stomach and shoulders while her mouth plundered his. Stunned again, he remained utterly still, like a complete doofus, until Juliet pulled back and looked at him.

"Well? You gonna get busy or what?" she asked. He looked a question at her and she laughed. She took his hands in hers and put them to the buttons of her blouse. "Come on, sweetie, get started. We've wasted a lot of time already, we've got a lot of wasted time to make up for."

Three hours later, somewhat exhausted and happier perhaps than he had ever been in his entire life, Lassiter kissed her, stroked her hair back from her face, and said goodbye.

"Tomorrow night?" she said, hopefully.

"You can count on it," he said.

"You know, you could stay 'til morning and I could drive you home," she said.

"I gotta work tomorrow," he said. "I'll have to leave the house early. You don't need to get up that early on Christmas Day."

"Okay," she said with a sigh. "But tomorrow night you're driving here, and you're bringing a go-bag so you can change clothes without going home."

"Got it," he said, smiling down at her. He touched his forehead to hers, briefly, and then kissed her again. "See you then, babe."

" _Á bientot,_ lover-boy," she said, with a grin.

He headed off down the street, whistling cheerily. He wanted to sing. He wanted to skip. Hell, he wanted to dance. He settled for walking at a brisk pace. He took a shortcut down a side alley a few blocks from Prospect Gardens.

At the other end of the street, two men were arguing. Drunks, by the sound, and there was a bar nearby. Lassiter put on speed, intending to break up the argument and send the men packing before someone could call the cops on them for disturbing the peace or something worse. Before he could reach them, could even come close enough for a shout to get their attention, something very strange happened. Something that had him stop dead in his tracks.

Something huge burst out of the darkness. Not as though it stepped out of the shadows: more as if it simply appeared, moreover in a burst of flame. The… _creature_ , for it was certainly not human, stood on the order of ten feet tall, was pure white, unclothed, quite obviously male, had hooves on its feet and talons on its hands, had horns on its head, and bright red fur on its head, elbows, and its backwards-facing knees. It looked down the street at him and leered, and ran out a long red tongue to lick its lips. Its eyes were fire.

It reached down a hand and laid it on the shoulder of one of the drunks. The man took no apparent notice, nor did his foe. They just kept arguing. But the man with the creature's hand on his shoulder immediately reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small-caliber pistol. He raised it, and fired it directly into the other man's face, then stood there stupidly, looking like he didn't quite know what he'd just done. The creature was still staring, leering, at Lassiter, something like humor in its expression.

"Take a good long look, Booker," it said, and its voice was a low growl. "We'll let you be for now, but we are coming for you…and maybe, just maybe, that pretty little blonde of yours, too. Won't that be nice? _Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha."_ And then it disappeared in another burst of fire.

Lassiter stood stock still for a moment longer, until he managed to shake himself out of his stupor. He hadn't seen what he'd thought he'd seen, certainly hadn't heard what he thought he'd heard - who the hell knew his mother called him Booker? - but he had been witness to a murder, and something had to be done about it. He trotted down to the end of the block, where the drunk was still staring, apparently shocked, at the gun held in his hand.

"SBPD, don't move!" Lassiter said, and was able to remove the gun from the man's hand with no resistance. He took the man's hands behind his back and cuffed him, then spoke into his police radio, calling for backup and transport of a suspect.

"I don't know what happened here, buddy, but…I gotta do my job," he said, with the horrible feeling that this particular murder, cold-blooded or not, wasn't entirely this man's fault.

He was tied up for the next few hours in Booking and Processing, and a black and white took him home in the wee hours. He came through the front door ready to drop, and was startled wide awake when he came face to face with a man standing there in the middle of his living room, a man in a snappy black suit. Lassiter had his gun out in a heartbeat.

"That won't do you any good, you know," the man said, quite calmly, and Lassiter realized he recognized the voice. He'd heard it in his head just the night before. Cautiously, he lowered his gun and took a good, long look at the man. He had neatly trimmed black hair, gone gray at the temples, and a well-trimmed goatee, well-silvered, and bright blue eyes. An aquiline nose, a narrow face, broad shoulders, slim build, and quite tall - about six-three. He looked somewhere around fifty years old at a guess.

"You don't look 728," Lassiter said, slowly. The man grinned.

"I shall someday," he said. "How old I will actually be at that time is hard to say."

"Who are you?" Lassiter asked.

"The man you think of as your 'mysterious mentor,'" the man said.

"I figured that much out for myself. Detective, you know. Who are you _really?"_

The man paced the living room with his hands behind his back. "I'm afraid proper introductions will have to wait. You, dear boy, are in a great deal of danger. I had hoped this would not happen: you are not anywhere near on a level where it ought to have. However, apparently the evil forces of at least one of the darker dimensions have determined already that you will reach that level, and have decided to do something peremptorily about it. They will, given the chance, kill you. You are not prepared to defend yourself yet."

"Is that what I saw tonight? An…evil force?" he asked, uncertainly.

"What you saw was quite properly termed a demon," the man said matter-of-factly. "There are several dimensions that are home to such creatures. I believe that this one may have come from the Dark Dimension itself - the ultimate of all dimensions of evil nature."

"But if that thing wanted to kill me, why didn't it?" he asked.

"Quite simply, because it wants to hurt you first," the man said, and he stopped and turned to look somberly at Lassiter. "To that end, they will go after your Detective O'Hara first, because hurting her will hurt you so badly that you will wish yourself dead, and they will like that very much."

Lassiter felt a cold chill settle over him, and his heart seemed to drop into his gut. His teeth started chattering, a nervous habit he thought he'd kicked. He breathed in - _1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 -_ and out again - _1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6_ \- and the chattering slowly stopped. "What do I do?" he asked. "How do I protect her?"

"The only way you can. By leaving her," the man said.

There were more words, spoken in tones of gentleness and sympathy, but Lassiter barely comprehended them. All he could hear was a repetition of the words _Leave her…leave her._

 _Dear Lord and Sweet Lady Justice, I just got her…_

Finally, the man's hand gripped his shoulder. "Write a letter," he said. "See to the disposition of what you must leave behind, and leave a message for your loved ones. You have time enough for that, but then we must leave. You won't be fully protected until you are safely in my home."

Later, when people were sufficiently worried to come looking for him, worried enough to have the building manager open his apartment door, they found this note:

 _I'm sorry. I don't want to leave, believe me, I don't. Everything I leave behind: the car, the condo, everything, goes to Lauren - Lu, you know I love you. If anyone ever finds my brother, tell that knuckle knob I love him, too._

 _Juliet…I wish I had something to leave you, something fantastically valuable. The only thing I have to give you is my heart, and you've had that for a long damn while now. I thought about leaving you the dragon you gave me, but I decided at last that that wouldn't be fair. I wanted to leave "your firebreather" watching over you, but I want you to go out and find someone who makes you happy, who'll keep you safe. I know you can look after yourself, but letting go of me sooner rather than later will keep you safer than you can well imagine. So I'll keep the dragon, and when I look at it I'll think of you, not that I think you'll ever be far from my mind. Go out and live and be happy, my darling, but maybe, just a little bit, you could possibly, as Warren Zevon said, "Keep me in your heart for awhile."_

 _Chief: Sorry to leave so abruptly. I know that puts you in a bad place. I really didn't have a choice, believe me. If you want my recommendation, you can't do better than to put O'Hara in as Head. I don't say that because I love her, I say that because she's the finest detective I've ever known, with all the best qualities of leadership I've ever seen. She could get the squad running like never before._

 _To everybody else: Ma, Althea, the guys at the precinct (McNab!), and even Spencer and Guster, just a little bit, I'll miss you. I'll be thinking about you. -Carlton_

* * *

 **A/N:** Songs in this chapter are "That's as Close as I'll get to Loving You" by Aaron Tippin and "Did you Ever Love Somebody" by Meat Loaf. No copyright infringement intended, no monetary gain received.

A note about my insistence on putting Lassiter in size 12-narrow shoes when, according to Andy Berman in the audio commentary for the episode "Gus Walks Into a Bank," TimO only wears about a size 10: Simply put, I cannot stand to think that Lassiter wears a smaller shoe than I do, particularly when I _believe_ he is at least a little bit taller than I (hard to tell with actors: most of 'em are shorter than they make 'em look - I am fairly certain that I'm an inch or two taller than Roday and Dulé, no matter what height they claimed to be in the show). I wear 11 ½, and yes, that is a _man's_ 11 ½; I have a hard time finding women's shoes that fit me. 12 narrow is documented in the series, so I use that. It eases my vanity, and is a perfectly reasonable size for a man six foot or taller, and his feet certainly LOOK bigger than size 10, so screw you, Andy Berman. How the hell do you know precisely what size shoe Timothy Omundson wears, anyway? You're not the costume manager.

The Kia Hamstermobile isn't a Fusion, is it? I always call it the hamstermobile, so I've totally forgotten what it IS called. I was sure it started with an F, but now I can't think what it might really have been. My uncle has one of those ugly suckers - what is it called?! Damn, I wish I had internet so I could look this shit up when I have these problems.

Does anybody else think that Lamar Odum isn't going to make it? The news says his chances are postulated at fifty-fifty, but that sounds blazingly optimistic to me. His kidneys are failing, his heart is failing, and they said he's had seven strokes. If he DOES happen to survive, he's going to be a vegetable, more than likely. They keep saying "Oh, what a tragedy" but I don't see it that way. Sorry, but to me he's just another idiot who killed himself with drugs. Nobody made him do that. His choice. His stupidity.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of _Psych_ and its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

 **Rating:** T+

 **Spoilers:** Hard to say. Could be through entire series, but likely won't be many.

 **A/N:** I'm having trouble. I'm typing the wrong letters (entirely the wrong letters, like even from the wrong row of the keyboard), typing words over again, leaving words out, scrambling letters up, and my eyes keep going out of focus. I'm really starting to worry. Last time I talked to the brain doc (earlier this week) he said my symptoms are more like epilepsy than he originally thought, but also that the "slowing of the brain" they found on my original EEG was possibly caused by a mini-stroke (but probably not, since the MRI probably would've shown evidence of that and didn't). I don't like probablies. I like certainties. Little as I want to suffer through it, I really want to get this week-long in-the-hospital long-term EEG underway RIGHT NOW, so I can finally find out (hopefully) WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME.

* * *

 **Chapter Four: Now the Real Training Begins**

The merest eye blink, and Lassiter was no longer standing in his condo. He was instead standing in the snowy (snowy?) front yard of a grand Gothic mansion, painted a very dark gray color and undecorated for the holidays aside from a rather minimalist evergreen wreath on the red front door. Unbidden, words and music popped into Lassiter's head. _I see a red door and I want to paint it black…_

"Very droll," the man standing next to him said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Welcome to your new home."

"Where are we?" Lassiter said.

"The address is 177a Bleeker Street, Greenwich Village. It's good for you to get to know that, even though you won't be able to leave the premises any time soon. The house is my _Sanctum Sanctorum."_

"Greenwich - _New York?"_ he said in disbelief. "We traveled all the way across the country in the blink of an eye?"

"Yes," the man said. "You'll be able to do it, too, sooner or later, if you're as good as I'm beginning to think you are."

"This is…translocation through…telekinesis, right? In other words, teleportation."

"Indeed."

"Yeah…I think I'll hold off on that. I don't want to leave parts of myself behind by accident."

"That only happens in the world of Harry Potter," the man said, archly. "Come, let's get inside where it's safest."

"Why didn't you pop us right inside?" Lassiter said.

"I wanted you to see the house. Inside and outside are two rather different things. You'll be impressed, I think. Did you ever watch _Dr. Who?_ Remember the TARDIS?"

"Um…vaguely."

"This works to the same basic principle, if not exactly the same function. Come now, you'll see what I mean."

A bald-headed Asian man in a green silk Nehru jacket met them inside and bowed. "Welcome, Detective Lassiter," he said, in a clear, precise voice. "Pleased to meet you. I am Wong, once simply a student like yourself, now a master in my own right. Your rooms are ready, and all your possessions - and your dragon - have been situated. Your rooms consist of a sleeping quarters, a half-bath, a library, a study, a conservatory, and a laboratory. I will be in charge of most of your training from this point, particularly the physical aspect of that training."

"Physical training? What does a sorcerer need with physical training?" Lassiter asked.

Wong smiled thinly. "A sorcerer must be the pinnacle of both mind and body, for there are threats you will face that may require a physical response no matter how strong a magician you become. Aside from that, even should you become as powerful as our master, a disciplined body makes for a disciplined mind."

"Yeah…you know, the other guy said that all his former students either capped out or went rogue," Lassiter said, and Wong smiled that thin smile again.

"I am the single exception, at least thus far, but while I am now considered a master in my own right, I am still very much a student, which is why you will find me in a supplicatory position, something like a manservant, in fact. Students serve. It is a way of instilling that discipline, as aforementioned. Do well enough at your studies that you will have the time to devote to such service, and you will most likely take over many of my current duties."

"Awesome. Always wanted to be a 'manservant,' " he said, and looked around at the place he stood in for the first time, and for the first time he realized what the other man had meant when he said the house was something like Dr. Who's TARDIS. The grand entryway, as he couldn't help but think of it, was at least as big as he might have expected the entire house to be, judging from the outside alone, and from the outside the house was quite large indeed. The carpet beneath his feet was plushy soft and a deep red in color, and spread out towards the walls until it gave way on both sides to highly polished rich wood of mahogany or similar. The carpet extended up a grand curved staircase with mahogany steps and white risers with a thick mahogany banister. There were numerous doors set into the red papered and mahogany-molded walls both upstairs and down, leading to apparently dozens of rooms. The light fixtures were ornate chandeliers, Tiffany-style lamps (they were probably real Tiffany, by the look of this place), and on the walls, actual candlesticks, in elegant brackets of gold. Lassiter wasn't much of a judge of the value of furnishings, but the stuff in this room looked to be of high quality and exceedingly high expense.

"I'm sure you would like to look around, but the master will take you on the grand tour in the morning. For now you should rest. I will show you to your quarters," Wong said.

"Does he actually make you call him 'the master?' " Lassiter asked.

"Actually, those of us who live or work closely with him generally call him 'Doc,' " Wong said. "Though you will most likely come to that point by this time tomorrow, you do not yet know him that well. One point of caution: Don't call him 'Stevie.' He hates that."

"I'll keep that in mind. You know," he said as they started up the stairs, "something about this whole place

…and you in particular…seems kinda oddly…familiar to me. I would swear I know you from somewhere."

"That is possible," Wong said, with one of those spare smiles again. "Have you ever read the Marvel Reports?"

"The what?" Lassiter asked.

"The Marvel Reports. More properly known to Mundanes as the 'Marvel Comics.' "

Lassiter stopped short, stunned. "Marvel…Comics?" he repeated. "So then you are…and he is…no. No, no, no, no, no. Of all the crazy-ass shit I've seen and done lately, that I refuse to believe. No sir, no way."

"As you wish. The master will give you a proper introduction in the morning, and your desire to disbelieve will be severely tested, I fear, but as you wish. Your rooms are this way."

Wong led him down an extremely lengthy hallway, longer than many streets Lassiter had walked down in his time, and turned off at a suite of rooms near the end of it. "Here you are. Sleep well…or, as well as you can."

The room looked like a dungeon, minus the rusty iron shackles and the rack. There was certainly no bed, not even a straw pallet, which he thought was a comfort most medieval prisoners were afforded.

"Erm…I'm supposed to sleep here?" he asked.

"I'm afraid so," Wong said, and in truth he did sound sorry. "Comfort is a luxury, one that must be earned. Work hard, and you will work your way up from this. From what the master has already learned of you, you will earn your comforts quickly enough. He says you are quite determined, and that was when you thought of this discipline only as a hobby! Now it must become your life, and you must put every ounce of effort into it that you put into being a detective. If it helps you any, know that being a proper sorcerer is very like being a policeman: you are a dispenser of justice and a protector of civilians on an extremely high level."

"Okay…so if this 'master' of yours is like the ultimate cop, and he's been around for over seven centuries, why couldn't he stop 9/11, just for starters?"

Wong shook his head sadly. "That was a great tragedy, it is true, but it was a mortal tragedy. The master must let such things happen: it is a condition of his powers. Natural disasters, human-inflicted tragedies… he cannot interfere. There are other things that threaten this world, far greater than the Taliban or Osama bin Laden or any number of terrorists and jihadists or what have you. Those are what he protects us from. The things that have no business in this world. The true evils that mankind, for all it's so capable of being so very wicked, cannot even imagine. This is not to say that the master doesn't take any hand at all in mortal affairs; he merely cannot use his greater powers. To that end he has organized a team of meta-humans, known as the Defenders. They…do not work together particularly well. Personality clashes."

"But he can't protect O'Hara?" Lassiter demanded, his throat closing up. "If I have you right, what came after me tonight was one of those evils he can use his greater powers against. But I had to leave her for her protection."

"The master is protecting her," Wong said, "and he will continue to do so for as long as she remains a target. You will be in mortal peril until the day you achieve your mastery, if you ever do, and that means you must study vigorously and be thoroughly protected at all times. For Ms. O'Hara's sake, it is best you are not near her, for they will soon lose interest in her and her life will no longer be in danger. Now, go to sleep. The morning comes early in this place, and although the master reset time so that you have some time tonight to sleep, you won't get many hours in before the cock crows."

"Reset time?"

"Indeed. Well, with the time zone difference, it would've been late morning here already, and you had quite the day, so the master simply rewound the clock a bit."

Lassiter closed his eyes against the impossibility of it all. "I'd…better get to sleep, then."

"A fine idea. Good night." Wong bowed and turned to walk away.

Lassiter turned to enter his room, but stopped on the threshold as a thought occurred. "Wong?"

Wong half-turned. "Yes?"

"Can I just ask…how old are you?"

Wong smiled again - always that thin smile. "Quite young still, detective. Only two hundred and fifty-nine."

"Ah. And where are you from?"

"I was born in Burma. What is now known as Myanmar. I was, however, raised in Tibet. My father was the student of the master's master, a man known only as 'The Ancient One.' What his real name may have been, I do not think even he remembered by that time."

"How old was this 'Ancient One?' "

"I do not know. I don't believe anyone does. Suffice to say he was 'Ancient' when the master was young, and stories of him stretch back to near the beginnings of recorded human history. He may have even predated human existence on this earth - he may have been from some other planet or, more likely, dimension."

"Thanks. I was curious what I had to look forward to. So even, um… 'dilettante' sorcerers live damn near forever?"

Wong shook his head. "A mere dilettante would find his life extended only by a few hundred years. It is only a master whose lifespan is significantly extended. You are no longer a dilettante. Get used to the idea of living a long time, and start thinking about what other hobbies you might wish to pursue. Even with all the responsibilities sorcery entails, there is a lot of time to kill."

" 'Yippee kai yay, motherfucker,' " Lassiter said quietly, and entered the room and closed the door behind him.

He looked around at the bare stone prison cell that was his "bedroom." It was devoid of heating or decoration, and there was but one ordinary window set into the back wall. It looked like he could escape if he needed to. He might. It was so cold in here. Even fully dressed, with his coat on, he was chilled to the bone. Maybe it was because it was New York, and he just wasn't used to that kind of weather?

Pepper came flying out of somewhere, and landed on his shoulder. He reached up to absently scratch the dragonlet's head, and Pepper trilled appreciatively. Pepper was the only real source of heat in the room. With a sigh, Lassiter curled up to sleep on the floor, leaving his shoulder holster, as well as his coat, on. He thought he could easily use the coat as a pillow, but as cold as it was, he needed it more as a blanket. Pepper curled up to sleep on the side of his neck and was soon snoring softly.

Lassiter tried to sleep but oh God, it was so cold. And oh, how his back hurt. He could fairly feel the kink in his spine, and wasn't that something special? Yes, indeed. Thank Sweet Lady Justice for Pepper, the only warmth he was afforded. It was that more than his undeniable fatigue, most likely, that finally allowed him to slip into a thin and quite restless slumber at last.

Morning came all too early, as he'd been warned. He wakened by a knock on the door. Grumbling and bleary-eyed and so very, very stiff, he got up and answered it, only to discover no one there, and no particular evidence that anyone ever had been. The carpet was plush, and held footprints quite well.

Yawning hugely, Lassiter shrugged it off and turned back into his room. He looked around and was only slightly surprised to see two doors on the left and right-hand walls that he was sure hadn't been there previously. He opened the one to his right and discovered a tiny bathroom, featuring a lovely marble sink, a towel rack, and a high-rise toilet. Good. He needed that.

When he came out he felt somewhat refreshed, though a shower and a change of clothes was not just wanted but pretty much necessary. First, though, he tried the other door. It led to a large, richly decked out study, with a massive red oak desk on which sat Juliet's plaster dragon, under the tall reading lamp. He walked over to it and gently stroked the blue jewel on its forehead with one finger. He turned away before he could start crying. Crying was something Carlton Lassiter did not do. Keeping himself from tears had never been quite so much of a battle before.

Despite his depression, he looked around the room, taking in the tall shelves of books around the walls, and seeing with some great relief his gun vault tucked safely away in one corner. He opened it and discovered all his spares, including his hidden ones, neatly secured inside. Pepper was chasing the ball round and around inside the blue plastic thing Spencer had given him for Christmas on the floor nearby. He puzzled for a moment over the large dog bed in the other corner, next to the water dish and bowl of kibble. What the hell was that for?

He opened the next door, not particularly curious as to where it led but willing to find out anyway (there might be snacks in there), and was shocked when a German Shepherd popped up and put its paws on his chest and started barking most viciously at him. He stared, bemused, at the creature for a long moment, and then said, "Hi, Shannon." The dog immediately got down and went to his dog basket in the study.

 _What the hell is he doing here?_ Lassiter thought.

He heard that cultured voice again in his head - the "master's" voice. _You paid far better attention to him than his actual owners, and he liked you better,_ it said. _I thought he was better off with you. Though you will likely deny it vehemently, you have as much affinity for animals as you do for music. Speaking of music, there is a conservatory - of that kind - in the mansion. I debated giving you your own, but decided not to in the end solely because, at the moment, you are untrained on any musical instrument. Give a thought to it. One thing a sorcerer needs plenty of - far more than any police detective - are hobbies._

Feeling vaguely ashamed by that "likely deny it vehemently" line, Lassiter slunk into the room at last, which turned out to be the library. If the study was well-filled with books, this place was bursting with them. His personal private library, if that is what it was, was absolutely enormous; fully as big as a city block, and three stories tall, with a curving wrought iron staircase that circled up to a catwalk on all three stories. Clearly comfort was a luxury that only had to be earned in the bedroom, because fine armchairs and reading lamps and nice tables were positioned propitiously everywhere, so that one never had to travel far to find a nice place to take a load off and read. An enormous chandelier hung from the mostly glass ceiling.

"Jesus H. Christ and Sweet Lady Justice," he said under his breath, looking around. "Is it money or magic?"

 _A little of both._

He started, though he should've been used to these intrusions by now, and a little bit grumpy, headed for the door on the other side of the room. It led to a laboratory, set up for some serious experimentation, and the next door led to a conservatory - the greenhouse variety, filled to bursting with plants, most of which he could not identify. There was St. John's-wort, which made sense, and wolfsbane, and…rhubarb? What was that for? And…dear Lord…was that…cauliflower?

 _Rhubarb root has a medicinal purpose, and the poisonous leaves can be used in various potions,_ the voice said in his head. _Cauliflower…as well as the cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, and other vegetables you'll find growing here…well, they have their uses in potion-making, but mostly they are here because your rations as a junior apprentice will be, I fear, quite short. When it gets to be too much, you will be allowed to supplement them with these. Try to eat them before it becomes too much to bear, however, and all you will find in your mouth when you bite is ash. Sorry. It is all part of instilling that all-important discipline._

Discipline? Pah. He could handle discipline, no matter how rigid. These people didn't know discipline until they'd seen Carlton Lassiter.

 _Actually, you have some difficulty with it,_ the voice said. _You have a most unfortunate habit of allowing your temper to get the better of you. Otherwise your command of discipline is fairly impressive, but that is a control you desperately need to learn. I will teach you._

Now feeling more than vaguely ashamed, he slunk back through the rooms to his bedroom. _Where do I go from here?_ he asked in his head.

 _Meet me in the foyer,_ the master said. _I will take you on a proper tour of the rest of the house._

 _Um…that would be nice, but…I kinda need a shower and a change of clothes first…and some breakfast._

 _Bathing, I'm afraid, takes place here in the evening, before bed, so you will just have to wait for that. A change of clothing will be provided for you after the tour. As to breakfast…I know you are depressed, and I know you eat when you are depressed, but those shortened rations I told you about? Begin now. You will be fed at lunchtime._

Lassiter shrugged, as though he really didn't care, and indeed, he was in truth too depressed to care one way or another, despite the fact that he felt he could literally eat a horse. One hoof at a time. He headed out into the hallway, and had plenty of time as he walked down it for a song he didn't know to occur to him, and to sing it out loud to himself.

" _Hell is only half full._

 _Room for you and me._

 _Lookin' for a new fool._

 _Who's it gonna be?_

 _It's the dance of Shiva._

 _It's the debutant ball,_

 _And everyone'll be there_

 _Who's anyone at all._

 _Monkey wash, donkey rinse._

 _Goin' to a party in the center of the earth._

 _Monkey wash, donkey rinse._

 _Honey, don't you want to go?_

 _Monkey wash, donkey rinse._

 _Goin' to a party in the center of the earth._

 _Monkey wash, donkey rinse._

 _Honey, don't you want to go?_

 _Left eye, right eye,_

 _Take a look around._

 _Everybody's headin'_

 _For a hole in the ground._

 _And it's the dance of Shiva,_

 _It's the twilight of the gods._

 _Thunder and lightning_

' _Til the break of dawn._

 _Monkey wash, donkey rinse._

 _Goin' to a party in the center of the earth._

 _Monkey wash, donkey rinse._

 _Honey, don't you want to go?_

 _Monkey wash, donkey rinse._

 _Goin' to a party in the center of the earth._

 _Monkey wash, donkey rinse._

 _Honey, don't you want to go?_

 _Monkey wash, donkey rinse._

 _Goin' to a party in the center of the earth._

 _Monkey wash, donkey rinse._

 _Honey, don't you want to go?_

 _Monkey wash, donkey rinse._

 _Goin' to a party in the center of the earth._

 _Monkey wash, donkey rinse._

 _Honey, don't you want to go?_

 _Monkey wash, donkey rinse._

 _Goin' to a party in the center of the earth._

 _Monkey wash, donkey rinse._

 _Honey, don't you want to go?"_

 _Oh, you do like the depressing, don't you? Although I do admit, that song is remarkably cheerful given its subject matter. Perhaps, given your own feelings at this time, I could not have expected better._

He finally reached the upper level of the main entryway, where he saw the tall, elegant figure of the master step out of a room ahead of him, a pretty blonde-haired woman cuddled up to his side, wearing very little indeed. She giggled, they kissed, and then, with one last caress across his chest, the woman turned and bounced away down the hall. The master looked at Lassiter with a distinct twinkle in his eye and something like a smirk on his lips.

"Like I said, a sorcerer needs his hobbies," he said, and winked.

"Does that mean that was a hooker?" Lassiter asked, though not with much interest. Practically by habit.

"Oh no," the master said. "However, I would not be prepared to swear she is not a woman of uncertain virtue. Just not professionally so."

Lassiter shrugged, thoroughly uninterested already.

The master clapped his hands together and rubbed them briskly. "First things first: you shouldn't have to suffer this way any longer. The way you've held out against the pain in your highly physical profession is admirable and gives me great hope for your training, but it will all be so much easier without having to deal with scoliosis."

"Hmm?" Lassiter said, bewildered, but he wasn't left to wonder long. The master held his hands out and a blue light, in a sort of glyph pattern, emanated from them, and Lassiter felt himself straightening up and standing somewhat taller than before. Now he looked the tall master dead in the eyes.

"Oh yes, I rather thought you'd be as tall as I - which means somewhere down the line you'll be far taller. Sorcerers grow to contain the magical energy surging through them. Originally I was about five foot five inches, so you see the growth is fairly significant."

"Wait a minute - you fixed my scoliosis?" Lassiter said. "How is that possible?"

There was that smirk again. "You should be close to understanding by now; very little is impossible with a strong grasp of magic. Absolutely nothing, for the truly powerful. My master could do, literally, anything. I'm not at his level yet, but I had progressed far enough that he felt confident that he could leave the dimension - and the training of future sorcerers - in my hands. He…retired, let us say."

"Wait - the other guy, Wong, said you could only use your powers to fix…how did he put it? You couldn't use your powers on 'mortal problems.' Doesn't scoliosis count as a mortal problem?"

"If you were a proper mortal, yes it would. You, however, are a sorcerer. A low-level one at present, surely, but on your way up. It won't be long at all before you have the power to fix such problems, and there is no rule at all against using your greater powers on yourself. I merely preempted the necessity."

"Well, I, uh…I appreciate it. Thanks," Lassiter said.

The master put a hand to his mouth and rubbed at his goatee. "You know what? I think…yes, I really do." He made a complicated gesture, and suddenly Lassiter's face began to itch a bit. He touched his own mouth and felt hair around it.

"You grew me a beard?" he said, not knowing whether he should be shocked or merely incensed.

"A goatee. Nicely trimmed, not at all _Duck Dynasty_. And I grew your hair out a bit - not all that much, just enough to show the natural wave and a bit of the curl. You look quite good this way, and I don't just say that because you now look strikingly like _me."_ He moved his hand in a circle and a mirror appeared, floating in midair in front of Lassiter. "Take a look, see what you think. I have to say, I'm rather jealous. I had to do a lot of work on myself, magically, to look this good. Before I became a sorcerer I contracted smallpox, huge disfiguring warts, elephantiasis, and you don't want to know what else. I was also almost completely bald. The fact that you look this damn good naturally makes me want to turn you into a toad - but I shan't."

"I appreciate your forbearance," Lassiter said. He peered into the mirror. He was startled at what he saw. He always liked dressing up in fake moustaches and beards - the real thing looked immeasurably better. And while he was generally no fan of men's hair growing past the ears, he had to confess it looked pretty damn good on him. Just a hint of curl, a lot of wave, and drawing plenty of attention away from the jug handles. He did sort of look like the master this way - almost startlingly so; their hair and eyes were nearly the same color, and his nose was similarly shaped, except for its crookedness - but still he did manage to look distinct, which he probably wouldn't if he left his hair short like the master's.

"I, um…suppose I could try this look out for awhile," he said, trying to sound casual.

The master smiled. "Well, now it's time for a proper introduction. I, as I believe you have surmised, am Dr. Stephen Vincent Strange, though you seem disinclined to believe as much."

" 'Doctor Stephen Vincent Strange' is a Marvel Comic books character," Lassiter said, stubbornly. "A product of the imaginations of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko."

"Dr. Strange" nodded solemnly. "Indeed. The Dr. Strange of the Marvel Reports, particularly of recent years, as the publication has grown more and more sensationalized, is in truth a product of near-fiction. The original, as reported by Stan Lee, was far closer to the truth than the latest versions. They've even done a ludicrous 'alternate universe' wherein I have disappeared mysteriously and my 'son' must take over my position. I have no son. I have no children whatsoever. In another 'comic,' I appeared to the Richards' son as Glinda the Good Witch of _The Wizard of Oz_ movie, complete with dress and long blonde wig."

"The Marvel Comics' Dr. Strange wasn't born in…12...er…"

"1287," Dr. Strange said helpfully. "You're right. He was born in 1930. Moreover, he was born in Pennsylvania, while his parents were on vacation, and was raised in Nebraska. All of which, of course, made my British speech patterns - which they insisted on using regardless - sound affected and utterly ridiculous. The Marvel Reports were only started last century, when meta-humans became fairly prevalent. I also only became Sorcerer Supreme in the mid-sixties of that century. Coming to the party that late, they decided not to tell the whole sordid tale of Dr. Strange, and made me contemporary. As truthful as they used to be, the Marvel Reports are and have always been yellow press. There's another 'alternate universe' they created wherein I go back almost to my proper time period - relatively speaking; they put me in the reign of Elizabeth I - where I get my head cut off, and spend the rest of the story with it in a bucket of wine, speaking prophecies whenever it's pulled out."

"And where were you really born?" Lassiter asked, still skeptical.

"Merry Olde England. Bath, to be more specific."

"And coming from Bath, England, sometime around about contemporary, if I'm not mistaken, of Geoffrey Chaucer, your name was always Stephen Vincent Strange?"

The doctor smiled. "Marvel likes its pseudonyms, particularly alliteration, and most particularly names that are somewhat appropriate. I am, as you can clearly see for yourself, quite a 'strange' person. My first name has always been Stephen. My surname…well, I haven't used it in so long that 'Strange' works just fine for me. It was, however, Chasteyn."

"I still don't believe you, Stephen Chasteyn."

The doctor chuckled softly and gestured to one of the many doors. "Shall we take the tour?" he said. "Your credibility might stretch a bit by the end."

The room he led Lassiter into was an office, dark and richly appointed. Two people, a man and a woman, sat in comfortable armchairs before the big desk in the room, and two children, a boy and a girl, played together on the floor between their parents.

"Ah, doctor, good to see you," the man said. He had brown hair, graying at the temples. He stood up, and offered his hand to the doctor to shake. He didn't step any closer, even though the room was quite large and he was at the other end of it - his arm stretched, until his hand was close enough for the doctor to shake. Lassiter stood, stunned.

"Mr. Fantastic," he said, in a very quiet voice. "Reed Richards."

"Mark Richards, actually," the man said, smiling. "Marvel does like its pseudonyms and especially its alliteration. This is my wife, Susan; they never gave her an alias, although they kinda did: her maiden name wasn't 'Storm.' And you are?"

Lassiter didn't say anything. He couldn't. Dr. Strange put an arm around his shoulders and made the introduction for him. "This is my new apprentice, Carlton Jebediah Lassiter. He's a little shy and this realm is all so very new to him. I hope you don't mind my bringing him along this morning: he's still rather uncertain as to what magic is capable of - what he will be capable of - and I would like to show him as much as I can. May he witness the examination?"

The Richards' looked at each other. "Oh, why, certainly. Of course," Susan said. "Um, just one question," Mark said. "Is that a gun I see bulging out his coat there?"

"Lassiter was a police detective in his previous life," the doctor explained. "He's not at all ready to let go of it, and the gun and the badge are rather like a security blanket to him right now. Don't worry, he's quite trustworthy, and I wouldn't let him draw even if he wished to."

"Well, that's good to know," Mark said. "I have to say, he looks like he could be your brother, Doc. Or maybe your son. Anyway, all right, examine away."

The doctor went behind his desk, made a gesture, and the little girl rose into the air, giggling, in a purple glyph of light. A blue light encompassed her, and then she was sat back down. "Absolutely tip-top," the doctor said. "No worries whatsoever. Now, young man," he said, and the same thing happened to the boy. "Oh, we're doing splendidly," the doctor said. "No trace remains of any previous concerns. Yes; we'll keep an eye on him, of course, but I think he'll be just fine now."

He came out from behind his desk, made a street magician's gesture with both hands, and drew lollipops out of somewhere, which he handed to both of the children. Then he tousled their hair and chivvied them back to their parents. "I don't think we have to see each other for awhile," he said to them. "Let's say we come back for a follow up examination in…six months, just to be on the safe side."

They both shook hands with the doctor (Mr. Richards from the proper distance this time) and left, with nods to Lassiter as they passed. Lassiter watched them go, and then said to the doctor, "You had them bring their children in for a medical examination on Christmas Day just to stretch my credulity?"

Dr. Strange shook his head. "Oh no. You see, it's not Christmas Day. I rewound time a bit. It is currently October 16 - 2015, in case you were worried. I brought you back here so you could meet the Richards family and see some of the things I do, and they will never be the wiser, for they will not remember now that they already lived through this day once, without you in it. I will now take you back forward in time to Christmas Day - it will be like we never left it, but to Richards' you will have been here once before, and we shall remember it as well. To the people you left behind in Santa Barbara, however, October the sixteenth passed as it actually passed. You were not absent."

Lassiter began to feel dizzy. He couldn't keep up with all this. The doctor put a steadying hand on his shoulder, although just an instant ago he was all the way across the room. "Calm down, now. That's right, deep breaths. Is this really so difficult to accept? You accepted your entry into the world of sorcery fairly easily, all things told. Is this so much different?"

"That's when I thought sorcery was a fairly sedate, limited discipline, and Superman didn't really exist," Lassiter said.

"Superman doesn't really exist," Dr. Strange said. "DC Comics, Dark Horse Comics, any other comics; they are just works of fiction."

"What about Harry Potter?"

Dr. Strange smiled. "A product of J.K. Rowling's quite impressive imagination, just as the works of Robin Hobb are fictional, Mercedes Lackey, JR Tolkien, and nearly all other authors of fantasy literature I could name. Oddly enough, Piers Anthony's _Xanth_ novels are predicated on a germ of truth: Xanth exists, minus some of the more outré details, and minus the atrocious puns."

" _Twilight?"_

Dr. Strange grimaced. "Fictional. And rather poorly done, in my opinion at least. But then, I'm no fan of vampires, particularly ever since my brother was turned into one. And they don't _sparkle._ And no sane woman would ever want to have a relationship with one."

"Vampires are real, eh?"

"Oh yes. Werewolves, too. Most things mundanes consider 'mythical' are, in fact, real, but kept from mortal eyes by magic these days. Most of them come from other dimensions or, indeed, other planets, and so they rarely come into contact with humans anyway. Your little friend Pepper comes from the tenth dimension, a dimension populated almost solely by dragons - at least as its intelligent life."

"So Pepper is naturally smart? I wondered about that. Is Pepper my familiar, or is…he…just helping me out because he knows more than me?"

"Just so you know, I don't know for certain any more than you do whether Pepper is a he or a she, but judging from current body size and, let us just say it outright, attitude, I'm guessing you were correct in assuming that Pepper is a she. I could find out, with a little effort, but that kind of effort is hardly pleasant and I'd rather not, not when the answer will be forthcoming forthwith. To answer your question: Pepper does know a lot about magic just naturally: dragons of her species have a racial memory, passed down through the generations from parent to offspring, and her parents were well trained in the mystic arts, like many of her species. After all, it is difficult to be a six-inch dragon in a world of dragons. They must protect themselves in any way possible. Magic is a very good way to do so. That said, she may become your familiar in time. She does have a strong affinity for you, and an ability to read your mind and intentions that is quite familiar-like. But I rather think that's just her memory of her parents' magic; your familiar will come to you in time."

"Okay…if she's not my familiar…why then did you give me a dragon?"

"To start you on the path of getting in touch with yourself. Everyone has a spirit, and everyone's spirit is a little bit different."

"So I have the spirit of a tiny little dragon?"

Dr. Strange chuckled again. "Oh, no. Once you truly get in touch with yourself, I think you will find your spirit is not tiny at all. But it is draconic, most definitely. Learn to communicate with dragons with ease and you'll learn to communicate more clearly with your own inner self."

"What will my familiar be? A black cat?" Lassiter asked.

Strange shook his head. "No idea. I cannot see the future: that is one of the skills my master possesses that I've yet to learn. If I could, I would know without question or unpleasantness what gender Pepper truly is and indeed whether she is your familiar or not. Black cats are witches familiars only in legends, although it is a possibility: cats are as likely to be familiars as any other animal, more than some, and color makes no never mind. Your familiar may be ordinary or something you would consider mythical. It all depends on what takes that kind of shine to you. My master's familiar was a leopard. Maerlyn's familiar was an owl. My own familiar is a…a rabbit." He said this as though he were embarrassed.

Lassiter choked on his laughter.

"Pester is a perfectly good familiar," Strange said haughtily. "I could wish he were a little less adorable, but he can't help what he looks like. I could do something about it, but I shan't."

Lassiter suddenly remembered that "I'd like to turn you into a toad" thing and swallowed the laughter that still wanted to burst forth. He cleared his throat. "Are we…back on Christmas Day yet?" he asked, in a swift change of subject.

"Oh yes. We have been for quite some time. Shall we proceed with the tour?"

The doctor led him through the house to a massive gymnasium, where his physical training would take place ("and you may continue your tap dancing lessons, if you wish," the doctor said), and into the "main library," which made Lassiter's personal library look tiny by comparison. This one was the size of a city block also, but it was _thirty stories tall_ , with books filling every level. "Any time you require study of something you can't find in your own library, you will find it here, and you are more than welcome to come here any time," the doctor said. "There are not just works of the arcane here: there is everything from ancient literature to contemporary fiction. Anything to keep boredom at bay."

There was a greenhouse out back the size of a mansion, and the lawn was a snowy labyrinth a man could get lost in for years. Some places he was cautioned not to go, some doors he was cautioned not to pass. "They lead to other dimensions, many of them quite dangerous, none of them for which you are currently prepared."

There was an observatory at the top of the house, with a telescope that had to be larger than the biggest telescopes currently in the world - maybe bigger even than the Hubble. There was an indoor pool, the size of a small, deep lake. There was a fucking _carousel_ , made up of glowing lights and fantasy creatures, including dragons. "For the children of my friends," the doctor said simply. The house had _everything_. Every time Lassiter thought they had to be at the end of it, there couldn't be any more, the doctor would open another door and reveal another wonder.

"Ah, it's nearly luncheon, for which I suspect you must be grateful. Your change of clothing first, of course," the doctor said, and Lassiter took his first good look at what the doctor was wearing.

He'd paid attention previously, but now he absorbed. Dr. Strange wore black slacks, shiny black shoes, and a black Nehru jacket with a strange red design on the front that looked something like a fleur de lys or perhaps a slightly disfigured trident. "Um…I don't have to wear a Nehru jacket, do I?" he said. "Not that it doesn't look just fine on you and Wong, but…I don't think I'd be comfortable…"

The doctor smiled. "No, indeed. Each student wears what he or she is most comfortable wearing, although we do tend to 'dress up' here - not suits and ties, detective, but dressy-casual, let us say. Here - let me show you." He made a gesture, and suddenly Lassiter was standing in charcoal-colored slacks, a cerulean shirt, his badge at his belt and his gun tucked securely under his arm in his shoulder holster where it should be. It wasn't at all unlike what he was likely to wear on any given day.

"If you join us for the Christmas celebration this evening - which I would suggest you do, nervous though the guest list might make you, for it will be one of the _very_ few times you are allowed to eat as much as you wish, another being New Year's Day, and such times will not roll around in force again until next holiday season - then you will be expected to dress up a bit more; a tie, perhaps. A suit jacket shouldn't be necessary. I'm certain that friend Logan won't be dressed as nice as that - can't get that man out of blue jeans and into something more classy."

Wong came to show him back to his rooms for lunch, which appeared before him there in the form of a small bowl of steamed rice and a pair of chopsticks.

"You know how to use those, right?" Wong asked.

"Yeah," Lassiter said, contemplating his meal. Oh well, food was food. He picked up the chopsticks.

* * *

 **A/N:** Song in this chapter is "Monkey Wash Donkey Rinse" by Warren Zevon. No copyright infringement intended, no monetary gain received.

THE SOUL! THE KIA FREAKIN SOUL!


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of _Psych_ and its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

 **Rating:** T+

 **Spoilers:** Hard to say. Could be through entire series, but likely won't be many.

 **A/N:** I really need to brush up my knowledge of guns I don't personally own. For example, I don't own and thus know virtually nothing about Glock. That being the type of gun Lassiter seems most commonly to use in the series, I really hate not knowing anything about it. Fortunately, he has been seen with many different types of guns so I can throw in whatever I want to and it should seem plausible. He's a collector, as am I. I figured Nick Fury (the one-eyed man identified here as "Colonel": the original Nick Fury is white and I haven't read any comic books recent enough to have the Samuel L. Jackson version in them) would carry the most powerful handgun that doesn't blow holes in everything for a couple of miles. Lassiter, too.

* * *

 **Chapter Five: Introduction of the Quiet Man**

Wong led him through the endless corridors to the vast dining room. While the Christmas decoration in the rest of the house appeared limited to that one anemic wreath on the front door, this place was quite heavily decked out for the holidays, with garlands and lights and presents and an eighty-foot evergreen tree standing on the middle of the massive round dining table at which scores of people were already seated. Many of these people were quite odd to see. There was a man, seated near the Richards', who appeared to be made of rock - Ben Grimm? or whatever his real name might be. Another man colored dark blue, with yellow eyes and a spade-tipped tail. He didn't recognize that one exactly, but thought he might have caught a glimpse of him in the previews for one of the _X-Men_ movies, which he'd never seen. There was a man who looked to be utterly naked and made out of silver. There was a duck, that looked a lot like Donald. Then there was quite a large, muscular-looking fellow covered in blue fur. And a Native American man with a very cleverly-designed prosthetic arm and leg, both of which seemed to function exactly like a real arm and leg. There was a man with black eyes - totally black, except for the irises, which seemed to be red - and a distinctly African-looking woman, quite beautiful, in very fine, African-looking clothes with white hair and blue eyes. There was a bald-headed man who looked oddly like Patrick Stewart who was seated in a kind of wheelchair that appeared to be somewhat levitated. There was a woman holding forth rather a loud conversation in a distinctly Mississippian patois with the red-and-black eyed man who had a large white stripe in her brown hair. There was a perfectly ordinary-looking woman, rather pretty but more or less unremarkable in this crowd, that he felt inexplicably drawn to for reasons he couldn't begin to fathom. There was a graying, military-looking man with an eye patch over one eye and a shoulder holster containing two guns.

Wong introduced him to this crowd, though he tried to disappear into the molding, then sat him in the empty chair between the white-haired African woman and a very short, very burly dark-haired man with thick sideburns and a distinctly Canadian accent, who was the only person Lassiter had seen who was not dressed up. He was, in fact, wearing jeans, cowboy boots, and a red flannel shirt. From the three buttons undone at the top of this shirt, he appeared to be even hairier at the sternum than Lassiter.

"Howdy, bub," this man said, and turned his attention away. The white-haired woman smiled at Lassiter and offered her hand.

"My name is Ororo Hdala. The Marvel Reports call me Ororo Munroe. My codename is 'Storm.' It is a pleasure to meet you, Detective Lassiter."

He clasped her hand briefly and stared at his empty plate.

"I take it you do not have a codename or a Marvel alias yet?" Ororo said. "Of course, if you are anything like your mentor, you'll never have a codename. You are rather shy, aren't you, Detective?"

He shrugged, still staring at his plate.

The red-and-black eyed man was sitting on Ororo's other side. He leaned over and said, "We can't have that. Gotta get you shaken up, put some fire in them eyes, get some life in ya. _Laissez les bon temps rouler,_ m'man." He had a strong Cajun accent.

"Yeah, I've got a feeling my idea of 'good times' differs from yours just slightly," Lassiter said in a very quiet voice.

"Remy, leave him be. He's obviously far too uncomfortable here for your brand of _bon hommie,"_ Ororo said.

Shannon came bounding in, barked at everybody, and settled in at Lassiter's side. Pepper flew into the room and perched on his shoulder next to Ororo. "Oh, what an adorable little creature!" she said, and Pepper trilled appreciatively at her. "What's its name?"

"Pepper," Lassiter said quietly.

"And the dog?"

"Shannon."

"You like animals?" Ororo asked.

He shrugged. "According to the Doc I do," he said, still in that very quiet voice, still looking down at his empty plate.

"Well, it is rather difficult to gainsay that source, isn't it?" she said, with a smile. "Allow me to introduce you to a few people. This renegade to my left is Remy LeBeau, known as Gambit. The man sitting to your right is Logan Huddy, known in the Marvel Reports as Logan Howlett, otherwise known as the Wolverine. The dark-haired woman I see your eyes occasionally straying to is Jessica Edmunds, known to Marvel as Jessica Drew, or 'Spider-Woman,' and the reason you find yourself strangely attracted to her? is because she produces a pheromone that drives men absolutely batty. She can't help it. You can learn to ignore it if you try."

She introduced him to a few more people, just the ones who sat nearest. Lassiter barely paid attention. Eventually she returned to conversing with those around her and Lassiter was left alone.

Finally Doctor Strange came in, and all conversation ceased as though an "on air" light had gone off somewhere. He sat himself down in the last remaining empty seat and made a gesture, and suddenly the plates were filled with food. The man next to Lassiter, Logan Huddy-whatever, had a whole beef roast on his plate. Lassiter applied himself to his food when he saw everyone else doing so, and the man Logan raised a hand over his meal.

Twelve-inch metal blades popped out of his fist and he used them to slice his roast. Alarmed at the sudden appearance of weapons, Lassiter acted on instinct, leaping to his feet, disturbing both Pepper and Shannon, drawing his gun and shouting, "SBPD! Drop the weapon!"

Everyone stopped and stared at him. _Snickt_ went the blades, popping back into the man's fist. "Easy, bub, I was just slicin' up my meat. Jeesh, when you wanna be loud, you are _damned_ loud."

"You're out of your jurisdiction, Detective," Doctor Strange said. "Don't forget that. And try not to be over-precipitate in your actions. I know you were charged with 'protect and serve,' but you'll have to alter that slightly. Most everyone here is armed in some way, generally in some way they cannot help. No one here…ahem…under _my_ watchful eye," he said, giving a glare to a perfectly ordinary-looking man in spectacles sitting nearby him, "will hurt anyone else here."

"What's your piece?" the military looking man, the one with the eye patch, asked.

"Pardon?" Lassiter said as he sat back down, speaking very quietly again.

"Your hardware. Your gun."

"Oh. Smith & Wesson Model 4506 .45 ACP."

"Nice." The man drew one of his own weapons. "I carry the Desert Eagle .44 Magnum."

"Damn good guns." Lassiter said, not speaking with any more volume but showing far more interest than he had in much of anything all day.

"Detective Lassiter has quite a nice collection of firearms, Colonel," Dr. Strange said. "What is that pepperbox thing you kept under your pillow back home, Carlton? The Derringer COP .357 Magnum, isn't it?"

Lassiter nodded.

"And then he has the Desert Eagle .50 AE. Titanium-gold finish. Beautiful weapon."

The "Colonel" whistled appreciatively. "Nice. No one does weapons manufacture like the Israelis. Get another one and you could join the Avengers program without needing magic."

"Ah, I don't think I could fire that gun with one hand, let alone fire another one with my other hand simultaneously," Lassiter said.

"Doc'll make you stronger," the "Colonel" said.

Lassiter ducked his head down and concentrated on his meal. There was plenty to eat, which suited him fine: all day he'd felt oddly disconnected from the state of his depression, but it had closed in on him again and he could eat mountains of food. He shoveled down turkey, venison, roast beef, ham, mashed potatoes, vegetables of every description - he didn't taste any of it, and every time his plate cleared it filled up again. Logan looked at him with an expression of near awe.

"Jeesh, I thought I was a big eater. How is it you're so damn thin?"

"Detective Lassiter is blessed to have an exceptionally high metabolism and the gustatory capacity of _Eunectes murinus_ \- the anaconda," Dr. Strange said. "He eats a startling amount for a thin man. Mostly, however, this level of bingeing is unusual for him. He did not want to come here, and he is depressed about it. It was a matter of life and death, not just for himself, but for the woman he loves. Leaving her behind is something quite difficult to accept. When Detective Lassiter is depressed, he eats. Like a hog. I've given him some volition he would not otherwise have had today, but I'm allowing him his head at the moment simply because it is his last chance for awhile to eat as he pleases. His rations hereupon will be a bowl of rice a day."

The red-and-black eyed man grimaced. "I don't envy you, my man," he said. Lassiter thought for a moment - what was his name? Remy? "Growin' up in the Guild and trainin' there is tough, but I don't think much of anything is tougher than joinin' up with sorcerers. They gonna run you ragged. For centuries, more'n likely."

He couldn't help himself. As depressed as he was, curiosity was still a strong character trait, so he asked, "What Guild?"

Remy smiled and chuckled. "You a cop? I think maybe I'll keep that information to myself for now, M'sieu."

Logan leaned in and growled in a whisper, "A Thieves' Guild, copper."

Lassiter cocked his head to look at Remy with one eyebrow raised high. "You're a thief?" he asked.

The man grinned. "You din' hear me confess to nothing," he said. "Besides, what was it the Doc said? You outta your jurisdiction."

"Remy is a _former_ thief, Detective," Ororo said. "Never fear."

"Yeah. Glad you think he quit the business," Lassiter said, with a sniff, but he turned his attention back to his food.

When he was finally sated and his plate cleared for the last time he tried to sneak away, but Wong stopped him short. "Not before the presents are passed out," he said. Lassiter rolled his eyes and sat back down, knowing that between Wong and the Doc they had ways of making him obey. He sat with his arms folded, slumped down insolently in his chair with his chin on his sternum while presents appeared in front of everybody, so intent upon not paying attention to the revelry he didn't at first notice the brightly-wrapped packages that appeared in place of his empty plate.

"Open your gifts, Detective," Ororo said, trying on her new emerald necklace with a nod to the presents before him, and he looked up in disbelief. Blushing furiously, he sat forward, wishing his place was empty. He did not want to open presents in front of all these ever-so-strange strangers.

Pepper nibbled at his earlobe, as if to encourage him. Shannon laid his head on Lassiter's leg. Quickly, he grabbed a package and retreated with it so that he held it below the line of the tabletop, so as few people could see what was inside it as possible.

Much to his surprise, a shining steel revolver proved to be inside a zippered case within the box behind the wrapping. He identified it within a matter of moments as a .454 Casull, a gun he'd always wanted to get hold of. After the mess he'd made of the dinner, he didn't know if it was wise for him to have any further weapons at this time. He zipped the gun back up in its case.

The next package was the same: it contained a zippered gun case within which was an original 1860 Colt New Model Army .44 caliber revolver. The next package…contained a shining golden Desert Eagle .50  
AE, identical to the one in his gun vault. Uncertain why he should be getting guns, let alone a duplicate of a particularly expensive model, he hid them under his chair and sat uncomfortably, not at all ready to open the last package on the table, which was quite a bit longer than the others.

Finally, tentatively, he reached for it. It was certainly heavy. He lowered it to the floor and tore off the paper to discover what he'd been fairly certain he would discover: a hard case for a rifle or a shotgun. Inside was an original Spencer repeating rifle from the 1860s, one of the guns that gave the Union army a great firepower advantage at the battle of Gettysburg in particular. He didn't blame the gun for sharing a name with someone who annoyed the piss out of him.

 _We will put these safely away in your gun vault for you,_ the voice of the doctor said in his head, and the gun cases disappeared.

 _Uhh…my gun vault is full up,_ he thought.

 _It is now, yes, but that is no impediment to further collecting. If you wish to leave the celebrations at this time, you may._

Lassiter did wish. He pushed back from the great table and slunk away out of the room while everyone was too preoccupied with their gifts to notice him, if anyone was inclined to in the first place, which was doubtful. Although the dining room hadn't been on the grand tour that morning, and the house was a labyrinth he wouldn't be at all surprised to discover hosted its own minotaur, still he found his way unerringly to the one place he thought he could sit and think: one of the many expansive "halls of history" the house contained, this one boasting the history of warfare, from the armor worn by the huge and now-extinct Roman war dogs - Molossids, ancestors of the Saint Bernard and other large Mastiff-type dogs living today - to modern military weaponry the world over. He sat down in front of a depiction of the surrender at Appomattox and lost himself quickly inside his own head.

He didn't know how long he sat there, lost in deep thought. Minutes? Hours? It could as easily have been one as the other. He wasn't even truly aware of what he was thinking. It was down too deep in his head. This strange turn his life had taken was part of it, his shattered dreams were another, and overriding everything, the loss of what he had so briefly had with Juliet - sweet, sweet Juliet. He felt now he would never overcome the pain of that loss. Was life even worth living without her? There was an open question for you. Sure, he'd done it for a long damn time, but now that he knew better…

"I rather thought I'd find you here."

It probably should have startled him, the doctor's voice coming up from behind him without so much as a creaking floorboard to tell him he was approaching. But he didn't startle. He felt too utterly steamrollered inside to feel anything so bright and vivid as startlement.

"I have a question," he said, in that quiet, level voice he'd been using lately. "Did this room exist before I came here, or was it created to make me feel more 'at home?' "

"Does it really matter?" the doctor asked.

"I suppose not," Lassiter said. "Just curious as to how far you went to make me welcome."

"Well, the truth is…the room existed, but wasn't quite so extensive previously. All the halls of history are that way. Your interest is a bit greater than mine especially, probably because I lived through so much of it. Wong takes more of an interest in history than I, but again, he's lived through quite a bit more of it than you, and his interests tend to lie to Eastern civilization, not Western. You, I believe, would take as much interest in a documentary on the Mongol hordes as you would on the reign of Emperor Caligula - Speaking of whom, your Juliet O'Hara shares a birthday with him, did you know that? And you thought you had it rough sharing a birthday with George Washington."

"Yeah, I knew that," Lassiter said, in an even quieter voice. "Asked her once if she ever slept with a horse. She didn't get it. Slapped me."

The doctor's voice grew quieter now. "You will get over this feeling. Little by little. Yes, it will take a long time: you loved her dearly, long before you could call her your own, and you are, above all things, a tenaciously loyal man. You even tried to hold on to that wreck of a marriage of yours for far, far too long. This wasn't on that level. This wasn't a mistake. You and she could've had something beautiful, and for what little it is worth, I am sorry that it happened this way. I wish things could be different for you. Perhaps someday, they shall be."

Lassiter closed his eyes and said nothing. There didn't seem to be anything he could say. When next he opened his eyes, he found himself in his bare, prison cell room. There was a tin tub filled with what he was sure was stone-cold water, and a cake of what looked like lye soap. This was apparently the bathtub. He looked at it for a moment, blinking. If they expected to break him with discomfort, with pain, they had another think coming. They could teach him all they wanted about discipline, and he'd learn. He was more than willing to learn: learn to control everything inside of him, until he no longer felt anything. But this? A little cold water, the sting of a harsh soap, the cold hardness of a stone floor? He would scarcely feel it. It was nothing compared to what he felt on the inside, now that the doctor was no longer messing with his feelings, giving him "volition." He was trapped in a living hell.

Unable to work up the will to care about it even as he stood and shivered, Lassiter stripped off and climbed into the tub, which as he'd suspected was just a few degrees from frozen. He cleaned himself thoroughly, honestly not at all concerned with the chattering teeth or the faintly blue cast to his extraordinarily pale skin, and when he climbed out he wasn't remotely surprised to find that the tub disappeared and his clothing was gone, with nothing like, oh, say, pajamas, to replace them. Not even a towel. So he was to be cold and wet and naked, was he? Bring it. At least he still had his shoulder holster and his badge.

He wondered about that, for the first time. The Glock 17 that was his official service weapon was gone, apparently, but he still had his badge, which should've been turned in onto Chief Vick's desk right along with the gun and his resignation. Granted, his resignation had come more in the form of a suicide note than an actual official resignation (hopefully they didn't take away the idea that he'd _actually_ committed suicide from that note). What did Juliet think about that note? She probably hated him now. He could imagine her taking off the ring and the necklace and sending them down the garbage disposal.

And that idea made him suddenly nervous. If she'd taken off the necklace, what did that mean? It was supposed to protect her - from what? Apparently not from the denizens of the evil dimension that were now after him, or the necklace _he_ wore should've been enough. But what, then? He was still fretting about it when Pepper flew in.

Pepper clearly did not like his damp condition, but Pepper had the means to do something about it, if on a limited basis. The little dragon picked a spot - her favorite, or near-favorite, on his shoulder in the junction of his neck - and burned the remaining water away with her fire breath, only a little warmer than a candle flame. Then she snuggled in and went to sleep. Lassiter sat propped up in the corner curled up on himself and fretted away 'til morning. With the first creeping light of dawn appeared his new clothes, and he knew it was time to get up.

He fairly exploded out of the room and came face-to-face with Wong. "Your physical training starts now," Wong said. He clearly meant to say more, but Lassiter cut him off.

"In a minute," he said, fiercely. "First you tell me what this does. What _O'Hara's_ does." He held the jade cut crystal up before the man's eyes. Easy to do, since he was a good seven inches taller than Wong.

Wong raised one eyebrow, unruffled by Lassiter's temper. "I do not know," he said. "The master gave those to you. You will have to ask him."

"Thanks, I will," Lassiter said, and strode off down the corridor at cheetah speed. "Doc. Oh, Doc…"

The doctor liked to take people by surprise - not the wisest move when dealing with a cop, but Lassiter was already looking for him to do it and whirled around almost before the man spoke, even though there was no sound whatsoever to hint at his sudden appearance behind him.

"Detective. You really need to learn to control your temper. It will bring you to a sad end. It may bring all of us to a sad end," the doctor said, quietly and calmly.

The words were enough to jerk him temporarily off-course. "What do you mean?" he said.

"Forgive me, I keep implying you don't know how to control your temper. The truth is you're really quite magnificent at it, but your temper is quite a powerful thing, isn't it, Detective? There is so much anger inside you - built up over the troubles of your childhood, the neglect of your parents, the cruelty of your peers, and coming to a head under years of witnessing the greatest brutality and darkness common human nature is capable of. You control that rage, that fury, but the little bit that seeps out around the edges of that wall you built inside of you is quite dangerous enough. And, every little once in a great, great while, a little more has worked its way out, hasn't it? You know what I'm talking about."

Lassiter's face was dead white. "N-no, no I don't."

"Yes, you do. There was the time you were seven, and dropped a rock on that boy's head. Remember? The one who called you Dumbo?"

"I didn't do that. Somebody else threw that."

"That was what everyone thought. After all, there were plenty of witnesses - teachers, too - that saw you did nothing more than cross your arms and favor that child with your best - and quite impressive - seven-year-old glare. And oh, how fortunate that it was just a single, relatively small stone that couldn't hurt the boy much. You weren't all that angry then, but you hadn't built that wall so high yet - if you'd been truly enraged, you might have dropped a boulder on that poor child. Or rained them down on him and every other child on that playground that day. And then, of course, there was what happened the day Victoria came to you with her beau and said she wanted a divorce. In a way, it worked. It did convince her to give separation and couples counseling a chance. Her religious upbringing made her think it was an act of God."

Lassiter sank to his knees, his head spinning inside. "Oh God…I didn't do that. Tell me I didn't do that."

"Lighting dropping out of a clear blue, Santa Barbara sky and striking just that man, even though he had his arm around Victoria's waist at the time? You know better. I'm sorry, but you know better. And I wonder exactly why it took you until that moment to get angry about it. You knew she was cheating on you. You'd known it for a long time. You just…let her think she was getting away with it."

"I…hoped she'd get it out of her system," Lassiter said, in a voice that was dry and cracked. "Oh dear God and Lady Justice…I'm a murderer."

"You didn't do it intentionally," the doctor said. "At worst, it could be said you are guilty of manslaughter, though no court would ever think to convict you of even that much - even if you came right out and confessed. The most they'd ever think to do is send you to a mental hospital."

"What am I?" Lassiter said helplessly, falling to all fours and starting to retch. Nothing came up.

"An adept. Adepts are born, not made. The average person could pour their heart into studying sorcery for the whole of a lifetime and never be able to do so much as pull a rabbit out of a hat. Had you not set your course in life so firmly and irrevocably so very early on, I most likely would have come to you long before now and offered to teach you. It might well have been necessary, no matter what your wishes, if you had not fortified yourself so very well. Magical adepts are powerful individuals. Frighteningly powerful, even the weakest of them. You have a natural aptitude for Catastrophe magic, with perhaps a touch of Chaos magic thrown in. Truly it is amazing that, without any training whatsoever, you've managed to keep from killing all but one unfortunate individual with your power. I sense that the power you've locked away is far stronger than that single lightning bolt. How strong I really couldn't guess, but I rather have the feeling that you could give the Incredible Hulk pause for thought. You are the Warrior - Hoggoth himself created you, I begin to believe, which would well explain your draconian spirit, as well as all the spirit I sense in you that seems to trace back to the greatest warriors in human history. I do rather worry about you, in truth. I am powerful - I am very likely at this time the most powerful individual in this dimension, assuming my master does not remain here in any shape or form - but if the Vishanti truly did create you, you may be far more powerful than I. If I cannot train you to be absolutely in control of every aspect of your emerging powers, or, heaven forbid, if I cannot keep you from falling down a darker path such as far too many sorcerers ultimately take, then I fear for the future of the world and its inhabitants."

Lassiter shook his head vigorously, setting his newly-long hair flying. "I don't want to hurt anyone," he said, in that quiet, quiet voice.

Doctor Strange knelt down and pulled him to his feet. "And I am here to ensure you never do, my boy. Not ever again. Wong and I will teach you everything you need to know to keep from ever hurting another innocent soul."

"Who…who the hell are the Vishanti?" Lassiter asked.

Strange laughed. "You're familiar with Marvel's version of Doctor Strange but never encountered the Vishanti? Hoggoth, Oshtur, Agamotto - the triad of godly beings from whom the greater bulk of my power derives? At the very least, you've read about how I will frequently shout out such things as, 'By the hoary hosts of Hoggoth!' Marvel reporters are so ridiculously over-dramatic."

"Don't forget 'By the crimson bands of Cyttorak,'" Lassiter said weakly.

"Ah, yes. You know, I've worked with the crimson bands of Cyttorak on occasion, and they are quite useful in their own special way, but I can't imagine why anyone would swear by them for any reason. I blame Stan Lee. He gets a kick out of that kind of ludicrousness, and being the Big Man On Campus as far as Marvel is concerned, everyone after him pretty much follows his lead. Now…didn't you have a question for me?"

"Oh. Yeah. This. What does this do?" Lassiter asked, holding up his necklace again.

"I told you before you didn't want to find out," the doctor said.

"I have to know. I have to know what it protects against."

The doctor sighed. "Very well. May I borrow your weapon?"

"What?" Lassiter said, but he wasn't given time to understand the question. The gun was suddenly in Strange's hand, and pointed directly into his face, point-blank. The doctor fired. The gun went off. Lassiter saw the muzzle flash. Nothing happened.

"That's what it protects against," the doctor said, returning the gun to Lassiter's shoulder holster. Without leaning down, he made the empty cartridge and spent bullet leap up into his hand. He showed them to the stunned detective. "As you can see, the gun fired properly, and as you can further see, the bullet struck something hard at full velocity: it is quite squashed. What it struck was the spell. Both necklaces protect against such mortal threats as bullets and knife attacks."

Lassiter closed his eyes and shook his head. "Uh…isn't that…illegal? I mean…aren't you not supposed to protect people like that?"

"On a limited basis - a very limited basis - I am allowed to use my powers to such purposes. These are not my _greater_ powers. The rules there are far more strict. Do you feel better now that you know?"

"Are you kidding? Now that she hates me, Juliet will take the damn thing off."

The doctor shook his head, eyes closed. "No she won't."

"How do you know that? You said you can't see the future."

"I know it because she doesn't hate you. She misses you, wonders where you've gone, and worries that you're hurt or sick or even perhaps kidnapped, but she still very much loves you and would not take off the jewelry you gave her if she were commanded to do so under threat of death. I knew so sudden a disappearance wouldn't be easy on anyone involved, but it had to happen this way. We'll send her more information on what happened a bit later on, when you're able to take it to her yourself. Seeing you again will do much to ease her mind."

Seeing Juliet. The sheer elation of the idea did much to lift his spirits. Even the idea that he was a murderer temporarily fell into the background and became manageable. It did occur to him to think that perhaps it would be worse, that a taste of Juliet would leave him wanting more, that it would be as bad for him as walking into a donut shop was for a fat man on a diet. He realized he didn't care. He needed that taste, no matter how much it would hurt in the long run.

Dr. Strange clearly saw the light come into his eyes. He smiled and clasped his shoulder. "We'll focus on those skills: they're easily learned, and when you have command of them you can start earning your keep around here, which knowing you means you'll probably throw yourself headfirst into doing them. For now, allow Wong to begin teaching you the martial arts you need to learn to bring your body under your full control."

"All right. Sorry I flew off the handle, Doc," Lassiter said, shamefaced.

"That's quite all right. Go on, now. The morning is wasting and there is much to do today."

Doc disappeared then, and Lassiter went back down the hall to find Wong. He spent the next three hours in the gymnasium, fighting him. Not making any headway whatsoever. In point of fact, he had the idea that the man was holding back, taking it easy on him. It pissed him off. Finally he got his opportunity. He grabbed Wong by the wrist and pulled him into a standard perp toss.

Instead of falling flat on his back as he should have, Wong floated through the air seemingly weightlessly over Lassiter's head and landed on the other side of him on his feet. "God damn it," Lassiter said furiously. "Can't you even fall like a normal human being? You have to be Bruce Fuckin' Lee all the goddamn time?"

Wong smirked. "Please. Were he still alive, Bruce Lee would eat my dust. And you have my apologies. I meant to allow you to pull me off my feet. Training kicked in, however, under sheer instinct."

He gestured toward a nearby bench. "Please, have a seat. Rest yourself. We've done enough for your first day: you're doing splendidly, though I can imagine you don't feel you've accomplished much of anything yet. It takes time. You don't have to be anywhere just now, so relax for a moment. Catch your breath. Then, if you wish, you may ask me those questions I see hovering 'round your head."

Embarrassed, Lassiter sat, shoulders drooped and head hanging. Poised, Wong sat nearby. After a brief period of studying his bare feet, Lassiter looked up.

"I was just…wondering how you came to this life," he said.

"I was born to it. I told you, I believe, that my father was a student of the Ancient One. He 'capped out,' as you say, long, long ago, but was content to remain as the Ancient One's servant for the remainder of his time in this dimension. My father still lives in the temple in the Himalayas where the Ancient One held sway, greeting pilgrims who come to feel a breath of the Ancient One's presence that yet lingers there."

"I see. And then…how did the Doc come to it? I mean, I know what Marvel said - drove off a cliff, nerve damage in his hands, went looking for a cure when there were no options left - but if he actually came to magic back in the thirteen-hundreds, I really doubt that's the true story."

"It was a direct result of the Black Death," Wong said, nodding. "Though the medical profession was

primitive at best at the time, Dr. Strange has always been a doctor at heart. When he can't save people, he takes it personally. Millions of people were dying all around him, and while he wasn't getting sick himself, he couldn't do anything to stop it from happening to others. So he went looking for a cure, wherever he could find one."

"According to Marvel, the Doc is or, at least, _was_ an arrogant prick."

Wong grinned. "That's not an unfair assessment, actually. The doctor will admit it himself. But he's far more than just an arrogant prick, and when he is an arrogant prick, it's a defense mechanism. So, does that answer your questions? Or does it still confuse you how you came to magic?"

"I…I don't know. I guess I just came to it accidentally."

Wong shook his head. "No, you didn't. You didn't honestly believe that a Santa Barbara, California antique bookstore just happened to have an honest-to-goodness sorcerous handbook among its stacks that you, an Adept, just happened to find, now did you? Doc put that there for you to find. He was interested to see whether a rigidly pragmatic, intensely 'realist' individual like yourself, so violently opposed to the very concept of the fanciful, could be brought to an acceptance of something so fantastical as sorcery."

"Okay…does that mean he was trying to tell me that Spencer is the real deal?" Lassiter asked.

"Oh no," Wong said, smiling again. "You were quite right: Mr. Spencer is a fraud and a con man. Your Juliet realized the former some time ago, and it caused her to break up with him briefly. It was her realization of the latter which make her break up with him permanently. There are psychic telepaths in the world, those who speak to spirits and the dead, and even on very rare occasions those who can foretell the future with a high degree of accuracy, but the greater bulk of them, including 'Miss Cleo' and the 'California Psychics,' are frauds, pure and simple."

"Does Doc qualify, or is that just another magic power?" Lassiter asked.

"Just another magic power. It works to the same end, of course. If you want to meet a real psychic, a psychic telepath, I would direct you to Professor Charles Xavier, the most powerful natural psychic in the world today. He was the fellow at the table yesterday in the floating wheelchair. The one you thought looked strangely like Patrick Stewart. Patrick Stewart actually played him in the X-Men movies, so…that's one they got right."

"Who was that guy with the weird eyes I was sitting near last night?" Lassiter asked.

"Mr. LeBeau? He's one of the X-Men - Xavier's team of mutant civil rights activists and heroes. He's something of a psychic as well, in a manner of speaking; uses the power of his mind to affect biokinetic energy - a very basic form of telekinesis. He uses it to 'charge' objects and make them…blow up. He would be quite powerful indeed were it not for the fact that he had a genetic researcher perform brain surgery on him to 'limit' his out-of-control abilities. The world is happy that he did. As it stands his powers are classified as Alpha-level. As they were, they were most likely Omega-level - with the potential to destroy the world."

"Yikes. And mutants are…people born with…magic powers?"

"Not magic. Genetic traits far beyond what they call 'flatscan' people, giving them amazing abilities that may seem like magic. The X-Men are quite a large group. Storm and Wolverine, sitting beside you, were both X-Men, and quite a few others nearby you were as well. Most mutants with enough power to do something about the state of the world either belong to the X-Men or the Brotherhood - what Marvel insists on calling the 'Brotherhood of Evil Mutants,' because they stand in favor of a literal fight for mutant rights."

"Why don't I hear about this stuff on the evening news?" Lassiter asked. "Why only through a comic book?"

"The governments of the world like to keep a lid on such things. People know about it, of course, but…

well, they want as few people to know about it as possible. The only way the Marvel Reports are allowed to exist is to present themselves as fiction - and to make themselves at least slightly fictional. All the sensationalism isn't entirely their idea. That's why they like to play Alternate Universe storylines, just to make things even more unbelievable."

Wong clapped his hands to his knees and stood up. "The doctor would like to see you now, in what you like to think of as the 'grand hall.' I trust you can find your way there?"

"Oh. Uh, yeah, I think so."

"Excellent," Wong said, and disappeared.

Lassiter wandered through the twists and turns of the house until he reached the entrance hall, where he found the doctor standing near several well-dressed men, some of whom carried handheld recorders and two of whom carried pencils and sketch pads. Lassiter hung back at the top of the stairs, mistrustfully.

"Come down here, Carlton," the doctor said. "Allow me to introduce you."

"Somehow I don't think I want to be introduced," Lassiter said in that quiet voice that was becoming characteristic of him.

"Ah. You've guessed. Yes, these men are Marvel reporters, and yes, they did come here to get your story."

"How did they find out about me?" Lassiter asked.

"Not from me," the doctor said. "I expect someone who was at the dinner last night blabbed."

"Wow, he looks like the Doc," one of the men with sketch pads said. "Just younger, maybe."

One of the men with a recorder leaned over to him and Lassiter saw him whisper the words "Illegitimate son" with a significant waggle of his eyebrows. He felt his temper rise and swallowed it down with difficulty.

Another of the recorder-men spoke up. "Your name is…Carlton Lassiter, is that correct?" Lassiter nodded reluctantly. "Ew…I can't imagine any of us working with either part of that, especially for a magician's apprentice. Full pseudonym, or just give him a codename like Forge and Rogue and he can be a man of mystery?"

"I'm sorry, but I'd really rather you didn't mix me up in any of this nonsense at all," Lassiter said, not speaking up even a trifle but not having the slightest trouble making himself heard regardless. He turned and fled back into the recesses of the house.

* * *

 **A/N:** Sorry for the delay. I should've had something before now, but I chanced upon an unbelievable bit of good fortune, something that absolutely never happens to me except once in a great while, in ones or occasionally twos. I found books…awesome books…in the secondhand stores in town. Five of them. Suffice to say, I've been quite busy with reading since Sunday. And then after I had finished off the new books, I realized I could no longer hold off on those repairs my vehicle really, really has required for a long time now, so I got the jump on that. By the time that was drivable again, I decided to do a little editing on that story - "Captain Hook Damnation and Redemption." Really wish I could get a beta on that, I tend to ruin stories when I edit them but that one sorely needs it, it was written by an idiot kid. Anyway, it looks a little better now, a little smoother. After that, the week was mostly gone. Just so you know, I am working on chapters of other things, just not as, um…devotedly. Can't help it. This one has a siren's call. Once I get it finished I'm going to try to reconfigure it into a wholly original fic. Difficult now that Dr. Strange is in it, but I think I can manage it. It's gonna have a female main protagonist, because I think I write tough women better. (Not Juliet. I…fear…she's too perky for me to fully trust her. Certainly not in my hands.)


End file.
